RICHMOND, TX (Covering Katy News) - A new law that makes it an offense when drivers don't yield the right of way to a pedestrian in a crosswalk will be prosecuted by the Fort Bend County District Attorney's Office following a fatal accident in New Territory.
Bao Giang was arrested and charged on Friday. Giang drove the vehicle that hit Don Yeager, who was struck while walking his dog in a crosswalk at about 8 a.m. Yeager was airlifted to an area hospital but died about an hour later.
Giang is believed to be the first person prosecuted under the Lisa Torry Smith Act, commonly referred to as the Crosswalk Law.
"We have a real problem in our county," said District Attorney Brain Middleton. "We are hearing multiple reports of motorists completely ignoring pedestrians in crosswalks across the county, including children in school zones."
The law is named after Lisa Torry Smith, who lost her life to a motorist in a Fort Bend County crosswalk while walking her son to school in 2017. It is a felony offense for a motorist to cause serious bodily injury to a pedestrian or cyclist in a marked crosswalk.
Fort Bend County District Attorney Brian Middleton drafted the bill and convinced State Representative Ron Reynolds and State Senator Joan Huffman to sponsor the legislation in the 2021 Texas Legislature. The legislation received bi-partisan support and was signed into law by Governor Abbott on June 18, 2021.
Since the start of the 2023-24 school year, Middleton has been holding media events near county schools to inform residents of the new law, hoping to avoid what happened on Friday.
"I pushed this in the media and had my investigators enforce the law at local schools within the past two weeks alone," Middleton said. "Our county is better than this. Drive respectfully and responsibly and save lives."
Fort Bend Government Story Disclaimer: The owner of Covering Katy News, Dennis Spellman, is employed by the Fort Bend County Precinct 3 Commissioner's Office.