Road debris a menace for drivers

So here's one of those things that can cause irrational fear when you're behind the wheel: An AAA study finds that one in 300 traffic deaths in Texas are caused by road debris. Between 1999 and 2001 road debris was to blame for 1 of every 500 traffic deaths nationwide, but the rate was higher in Texas. The statistics aren't really new, but they're being brought to light in the wake of last week's bus crash that killed two students from West Brook High School; the bus driver reportedly lost control after swerving to avoid a bundle of insulation that had fallen from a truck.

There is a state law against allowing "loose material" — which can be anything — to spill or blow from a vehicle, but it's hard to enforce the law because it's hard to prove where dropped material came from if a police officer doesn't see it happen. Judging by the number of times Houstonist has seen things fall off the back of trucks (wood, gravel, chairs, etc.), officers are rarely paying around. The law requires drivers to retrieve things that fall from their vehicles, but that could cause even more accidents.

As the Chronicle notes, statistics about road debris-related accidents aren't always that clear because they can vary depending on what you consider debris. Federal data from 1995 through 2004 shows a higher national rate of debris-related deaths than the AAA study, and one estimate indicates as many as one in 200 accidents in which at least one vehicle was towed from the scene was caused by road debris (though only 1 percent of those accidents were fatal).