FORT BEND COUNTY, Texas — A man who was arrested last week is believed to be the first to be prosecuted under Texas' Lisa Torry Smith Act, which is commonly referred to as the Crosswalk Act.
Bao Giang was arrested and charged on Friday. Authorities said Giang was driving the vehicle that hit Don Yeager while he was walking his dog in a crosswalk in the New Territory subdivision around 8 a.m. Yeager was flown to an area hospital but died about an hour after he was hit by Giang's vehicle.
"Everyone driving a car should understand that the minute you put your hands on the steering wheel and you press on that gas, you are handling a deadly weapon," Fort Bend County District Attorney Brian Middleton said.
The law is named after Lisa Torry Smith, who was walking her son to school in 2017 when she was struck and killed by a vehicle.
"Even thinking of it today, I still remember it like it was yesterday," Lisa's widower, Elliot Smith, said.
Smith said the driver who hit his wife wasn't paying attention at the time.
"Less than an hour earlier, I said good goodbye then she was gone. It's devastating to be honest with you," Smith said.
The law makes it illegal to fail to yield the right-of-way to a pedestrian who is clearly in a marked crosswalk. It also required drivers to come to a full stop for any pedestrians or cyclists who are in an intersection. It's not a felony offense for a motorist to cause serious bodily injury to a pedestrian who's legally in a crosswalk.
The law was drafted by Middleton, who got Rep. Ron Reynolds and Sen. Joan Huffman to sponsor the legislation in 2021. Gov. Greg Abbott signed it into law on June 18, 2021.
"We have a real problem in our county," Middleton said. "We are hearing multiple reports of motorists completely ignoring pedestrians in crosswalks across the county, including children in school zones. I pushed this in the media and had my investigators enforce the law at local schools within the past two weeks alone. Our county is better than this. Drive respectfully and responsibly and save lives."
In the past, failing to yield to pedestrians wasn't a crime in itself. Now, if a pedestrian is struck and injured while in a crosswalk, the driver could face jail time. It's not a crime if the person who is hit was jaywalking at the time. The law also covers people in crosswalks on bicycles and in wheelchairs.
Giang's official charge is "accident involving a pedestrian in a crosswalk."