Saturday, March 17, 2001

New measure would restrict accident info

AUSTIN - For four years, media groups and the state battled over a law that restricted access to traffic accident data.
   The state was enforcing a 1997 law that required anyone requesting traffic accident information to know the name of at least one person involved and the date or location of the accident.
   The Texas Daily Newspaper Association and Texas Press Association sued, saying the law infringed on the media's right to gather news. Reporters use such information to write stories on safety issues, such as the need for a traffic light at a four-way stop or a design flaw in the road that has contributed to a rash of accidents. These stories can save lives - if reporters have access to the information.
   The law was intended to protect the privacy of accident victims from ambulance-chasing lawyers and chiropractors. But it also restricted media access to important information.
   A Travis County judge recently ruled the law unconstitutional and Texas Attorney General John Cornyn is considering an appeal. Cornyn would be wise to let this one go.
   The attorney general has been an advocate for open government and knows the importance of allowing the media access to such information. Further appeals will only cost the state more money. The judge who struck down the law also awarded $70,000 in attorney's fees and costs to the two media groups.
   Sen. Mike Moncrief, D-Fort Worth, has proposed legislation that would correct the 1997 law. His bill attempts to prohibit the use of traffic accident records for the direct solicitation of business, but it also makes the information available to the public. But a state representative has proposed a bill that could start this fight all over again.
   State Rep. Ruth Jones McClendon, D-San Antonio, filed House Bill 46, which would restrict access to dispatch logs, towing records, accident surveys or 911 recordings. The intent of the bill is once again to prohibit unscrupulous attorneys and chiropractors from preying on accident victims. But once again it will have unintended and dangerous consequences of restricting information from the media.
   A McClendon staff member said they are reworking the bill, but it's troubling that such legislation was filed in the first place. This isn't just a media issue. It's an issue that should concern all citizens.
   "Freedom of the press, or, to be more precise, the benefit of freedom of the press, belongs to everyone - to the citizen as well as the publisher . . . The crux is not the publisher's freedom to print; it is, rather, the citizen's right to know," Arthur Sulzburger, publisher of the New York Times, said in 1990.
   McClendon's bill has been pending before the House Public Safety Committee since Jan. 22. Lawmakers should let the bill die in committee unless it's dramatically altered so it doesn't violate the First Amendment.
   But this law isn't even needed in Texas. The sanctioning bodies for attorneys and chiropractors - the State Bar of Texas and the Texas Board of Chiropractic Examiners - have procedures to discipline the unscrupulous in those professions.
   If the process isn't working, lawmakers should focus on improving those sanctioning bodies instead of passing laws that restrict the media's access to important information.
   Those who would restrict public information should remember James Madison, the fourth U.S. president and one of our country's Founding Fathers. Madison believed that openness was the key to instilling citizen faith in government.
   No one advocates allowing attorneys and chiropractors to target accident victims, but proposed solutions that restrict media access to information do nothing more than hurt a citizen's right to open government.
  

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Ty Meighan is chief of the Scripps Howard Austin Bureau. You can reach him by phone at (512) 334-6640 or by email at meighant@scripps.com.

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