Traffic crashes where someone is hurt will now land you in court

AUSTIN (KXAN) — If you get a failure to yield with injuries ticket, you’re going to court now.

The Austin Transportation Department, along with the Austin Police Department and Austin Municipal Court, announced the change Tuesday.

The procedure used to allow for people to pay the citations at the ticket window at Municipal Court or online, but now the city says it’s aligning the consequences with the Vision Zero goal of eliminating traffic injuries and fatalities.

Crashes resulting in any severity of bodily injury are now subject to higher minimum and maximum charges, up to $4,000 in the case of serious bodily injury, the city says.

“Last year, failure to yield was a contributing factor in 16 percent of fatal and serious injury crashes,” said Robert Spillar, director of Austin Transportation. “Crashes of all types caused by failure to yield forever change the lives of the people involved, as well as their family members and friends.”

So far this year, there have been 20 traffic deaths and 19 deadly crashes in Austin. At this time last year, there were seven traffic deaths, so Austin has nearly tripled the amount of traffic deaths year-over-year.