State of Texas: Terror attack raises questions about safety barriers

AUSTIN (Nexstar) - Just a few hours into the new year, a driver plowed a rented truck into a New Orleans street full of people. Investigators call it an act of terror. Law enforcement identified the suspect as Shamsud Din-Jabbar, an army veteran who lived near Houston.

The FBI released information indicating that Jabbar was inspired by ISIS, noting that an ISIS flag was found in the truck. President Joe Biden said during an address to the nation that Jabbar posted videos to social media "expressing a desire to kill."

The deadly terror attack is also raising questions about a safety measure that had the potential to save lives, but was missing on New Year's Day.

The safety barriers protecting New Orleans’ Bourbon Street were under construction, and not up, when a driver plowed into a crowd, killing 14 people.  The incident is prompting City of Austin leaders to also consider safety bollards in highly trafficked areas, like Congress Ave.

The project to replace the city’s old bollards along Bourbon Street with newer stainless-steel bollards began in early November and was set to continue until January, according to the city’s plans posted online. Online plans showed the construction crews would be “replacing them with temporary asphalt to maintain vehicle access” during the construction.

New Orleans Police Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick said on Wednesday there were officers and police cars in places where bollards were supposed to be. Kirkpatrick said the driver drove around the police vehicles onto the sidewalk.

Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry vowed to fix "defects" with safety barriers in the French Quarter.

"We can go into what-ifs forever. This is evil," Landry said. "Where there are defects in the system, we are going to be transparent, address them with the city, and make sure that we fill those gaps as best we can."

Rob Reiter, the co-founder of the nonprofit Storefront Safety Council, said using a police car as a safety barrier is not effective or recommended.

"A police car has a lot of things, but it's not a cheap, effective, full-time safety barrier. They can get moved for a number of reasons," Reiter said. "A determined attacker can push the vehicle out of the way using, you know, a low-speed crash, or just pushing it."

A recent study from the Cyber Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency identified 51 vehicle attacks in the United States between 2000 and 2022. The report also discussed vehicle-borne improvised explosives devices, or VBEID, in which a perpetrator uses a vehicle to deliver a bomb.

“Although infrequent, especially in the United States, potential VBIED incidents remain a serious concern for critical infrastructure facilities and mass gathering event security teams due to the associated potential threats, damage, and lethality,” the April 2024 report stated.

U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, asked the General Services Administration to review all federally owned and leased buildings in the southwestern United States, including Louisiana, amid an "increased number of deaths and injuries from a lack of safety bollards." The letter sent on Dec. 27 cited KXAN's "Preventing Disaster" investigation.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation said on Wednesday that weapons and a potential IED were in the Ford pickup truck investigators said 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Jabbar drove into the crowd on Bourbon St. An ISIS flag was also located in the vehicle.

The topic of safety bollards has come up recently within the Austin City Council and the Texas Legislature following KXAN’s reporting on a drunk driver who crashed through an Austin emergency room.

In December, the Austin City Council unanimously passed an ordinance, introduced by outgoing Council Member Mackenzie Kelly, requiring crash-rated safety bollards at new hospitals, urgent care clinics, and stand-alone emergency rooms.

Council Member Zo Qadri is also pushing for safety bollards to be placed in other parts of the city with high-foot traffic, specifically a requirement for safety bollards in downtown Austin. Qadri referenced concerns around a previous incident during SXSW in 2014 where a man drove into a crowd at the festival, killing four people.

“The tragedy in New Orleans underscores the need for our City to remain dedicated to safe streets and public spaces," Qadri said in a statement to KXAN. "I'm committed to exploring with staff enhanced safety treatments for major street closures downtown, along with anything applicable to our City that investigations in New Orleans may reveal.”

Texas State Senator Royce West, D-Dallas, filed a bill requiring crash-rated safety bollards at most hospitals in the state after KXAN’s reporting revealed more than 400 crashes, at or into, medical centers nationwide in the last decade.

Bipartisan work underway to legalize fentanyl test strips in Texas

After failing to make it to the governor's desk last legislative session, Texas lawmakers are re-filing bills to decriminalize fentanyl test strips. Those strips can alert drug users to the presence of fentanyl which is often more potent and deadly than other drugs.

HB 253, filed by Rep. James Talarico, D-Austin, would decriminalize the test strips. Sen. Sarah Eckhardt and Sen. Molly Cook, both Democrats, filed a companion bill in the Senate — SB 362. Rep. Tom Oliverson, R-Cypress, filed HB 1644, which is almost identical to the decriminalization bill he filed last session.

"There are only five states that still outlaw these test trips, and Texas is one of them. So we've got to change this so that we can start saving lives here in our state," Talarico said.

Rep. Erin Zwiener, D-Driftwood, also filed a similar bill in December.

"We have a responsibility to try and save lives," Zwiener said. "Just this year in my district there have been six fentanyl poisonings in Hays County and four of those resulted in deaths. Those are four people who should be with us today."

Stephanie Roe, who lost her son, Tucker, to fentanyl poisoning and has since successfully pushed changes to Texas law, said on KXAN's 'State of Texas' that her nonprofit is prioritizing the decriminalization of the strips again.

"We really want that to pass this session. We were disappointed last session that that did not get passed, and we're working on several others [changes] as well. We will not stop. We are relentless," Roe said.

Despite bipartisan support, bills addressing fentanyl test strips haven't made it to the governor's desk. Last legislative session, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said he supported decriminalization.

“So that people will be able to test drugs at home to know whether or not it might be laced with fentanyl,” Abbott said then, after visiting with University of Houston researchers who developed a fentanyl vaccine.

"While we've seen some bipartisan support in Congress and in the Texas Legislature for supporting fentanyl testing strips, we've never made it past the legislative line in either forum. And we need in Congress, and in the Texas Legislature that's about to convene, approval to make these fentanyl testing strips readily available and legal," U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett said at a Travis County federal grant announcement tied to drug overdoses.

In 2023, the Texas House of Representatives overwhelmingly voted to legalize fentanyl test strips. The bill did not make it through the Senate.

"I think we just have to keep working with them…but what happened last time, unfortunately, is we got into a position where the bill got stuck, I was working to get it unstuck and then folks decided to barricade themselves inside a senator's office. And threatening lawmakers is never a strategy for actually winning the persuasion argument," Oliverson said.

Commercial auto insurance rates up in Texas, despite lawsuit reform law

Commercial auto insurance rates rose for the second year in a row, new data shows. This comes despite a 2021 state law's goal of bringing down costs by making it harder to sue trucking companies, critics argue.

In the three years since a law targeting civil lawsuits against trucking companies passed (through June 30 of this year), commercial insurance rates for all vehicle types increased, on average, nearly 28%, according to a weighted rated change calculation and a new report released by the Texas Department of Insurance.

Since 2017, commercial rates have climbed by an average of 73%, according to TDI. The final numbers for 2024 are not available yet.

The law, House Bill 19, created a "bifurcated" trial process when suing trucking companies involved in accidents on Texas roads, which are already some of the most dangerous in the country. Under HB 19, civil lawsuits involving a commercial vehicle are essentially split into two trials. A jury must first find the driver negligent before it can consider, in a second phase, whether the company carries any blame -- and if so, how much.

Juries can only hear certain accusations -- for example, if a company was negligent in hiring or training an employee -- in a trial's "second phase." Attorneys said the law puts a "muzzle" on a victim's ability to tell their story in court.

Supporters said the law isn't meant to prevent “legitimate” victims from seeking justice but rather to prevent juries from “unfairly” punishing businesses through large so-called "nuclear verdicts."

The legislature tasked TDI with studying the law's impact on insurance rates, which was a selling point to lawmakers.

Last year, TDI began surveying insurers that filed a rate change. Their responses fell into three categories: HB 19 has "no impact," the impact is "immaterial to rates" or it is "too early to determine" how significant the law will be, according to the report.

TDI said some insurers provided data related to the change in lawsuit rates but noted, "so far," it has yet to see "any impact" from HB 19.

"None of the insurers said that their rate changes were due to HB 19," the report found. "A few insurers thought that HB 19 may eventually positively affect rates, but the effect is not quantifiable at this time."

The average liability premium for all vehicle types increased 70% from 2017-2024. For trucks, tractors and trailers it increased 75% during that timeframe.

"Per any comment, we defer to the report," a TDI spokesperson said.

The Texas Trucking Association lobbied for HB 19. In 2021, TTA President John Esparza testified in front of state lawmakers that reforms were needed because "grossly inflated verdicts" were "driving up insurance costs" and "putting companies out of business." In a recent interview with KXAN, Esparza admitted it's "going to take some time to see whether HB 19 is going to be effective."

“It’s very difficult to see rates go down," he said. "But we’ve got to start with providing the environment in which they can.”

Esparza said he expects the law will help "slow" rising rates but, in a statement, doubled-down by saying the new figures are "precisely why further tort reform must be pursued today."

"We are living in an era where phantom medical damages, staged accidents, and third-party investors benefiting from the blatant abuse of our judicial system are commonplace," he said. "It's driving insurance companies out-of-state and trucking companies out-of-business. Unchecked, we can expect this type of lawsuit abuse to continue, and as you have noted, progressively gotten worse."

He said he wants lawsuit reform that ensures "actual victims" receive "thoughtful and fair compensation."

Texas Watch, a non-partisan group that advocates on behalf of consumers, said the latest numbers aren't surprising.

"We've had 30 years of tort 'reform' in this state -- always with the promise of lower insurance rates," said Ware Wendell, the group's executive director. "That promise has been broken over and over. Insurance rates continue to skyrocket for drivers, patients, and small business owners who are paying more and more as greedy insurance companies continue to hike their rates."

Wendell testified against HB 19. His organization plans to fight efforts by the newly formed Lonestar Economic Alliance to expand the law during the next legislative session. Lobbyists have called for pain and suffering judgments to be capped, medical bills presented to juries to be regulated, and certain information -- like if a driver was drunk or unlicensed -- to only be heard if a civil trial reaches a "second phase." Texans for Lawsuit Reform has advocated for "claims for negligent hiring and retention" to be "jettisoned altogether" and poor training to only be disclosed in "unusual circumstances."

"Gutting our legal rights only hurts families," Wendell said. "It does nothing to improve safety or lower insurance costs."

The Alliance, which likened some civil suits to being held for "ransom," is made up of more than 650 members from industries that include insurance, transportation, agriculture, construction, finance, food and beverage, home services, housing, law, medical supplies, oil and gas and other trade associations, according to a news release and the group’s website.

"Special interest laws for careless trucking companies only make our roads more dangerous, driving up costs and stealing lives," Wendell said. "Our focus needs to be on reducing the number of crashes, not removing rights."

Texas DPS requesting funding for driver license service improvements

Col. Freeman Martin, the new director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, said the biggest challenge facing the agency today is a lack of staffing. This challenge is not only impacting law enforcement service, but also driver license services that have lead to long wait times for Texans waiting to get an ID.

"We have not kept up with the growth and population in Texas," Martin said in video released by the agency in December. The agency is requesting 500 new commissioned personnel to help address the shortage and provide relief for the troopers who Martin says have an "increase workload."

It is also requesting an additional 1,525 non-commissioned positions over the next two years, with about 80% of those new positions going toward increasing the staff for driver license services. According to the agency's Legislative Allocations Request for the upcoming biennium, the agency is requesting $207.7 million dollars to improve driver license services staffing, and an additional $21 million dollars for technology improvements.

Martin said the agency is doing well with wait times for driver license appointments in rural areas, but struggle in more populated major metropolitan areas. According to the allocations request, several areas are experiencing wait times over 60 days, and some areas even have wait times that exceed 90 days.

Many Texans in central Texas are feeling that long wait time, including Kevin Gray. He lost his wallet in the summer, and is still without an ID to this day. He called San Antonio and Austin offices to schedule an appointment and found he was going to have to wait four months.

"I really couldn't believe it," Gray explained. He decided to use a tactic that many Texans are deferring to -- driving to a more rural location. He chose an office in Seguin and waited in line, but was told to go home and schedule an appointment online.

"I believe the citizens of Texas deserve better," Gray said.

The budget request from DPS would provide funding to add 833 new positions across the state for driver license staffing, but the agency is also looking at the call center staffing. The agency answers customer questions related to licensing and identification services in its Customer Service Center (CSC).

Since 2020, the CSC has received 47,564,627 phone calls and could only answer 2,508,197 of those because of a lack of staffing, according to the allocation request. The CSC also answered 1.5 million emails in that same time frame as well. The request states the "CSC continues to receive millions of customer contacts that cannot be handled due to lack of resources."

Martin said the issue comes with the REAL ID-compliant driver license, which is marked with a gold star in the upper right corner. He said the agency is looking at technology upgrades to allow Texans to upload the proper documents while at home, so those documents do not have to be verified in the office, which can take hours.

The agency is also looking at upgrading the appointment system. Martin said offices in big cities have a 30% no-show rate. The solution is updating the system so people can easily cancel their appointment, and they will be sent reminders about their appointment where they will have to verify they are still going.