BRYAN, Texas — Monday, three people died in two different crashes in Washington and Grimes counties; several other crashes left several others seriously injured.
Department of Public Safety officials attribute the cause of the crashes to the wet road conditions. In light of those cases, officials want to encourage extra caution on the roads. Safety tips include:
- Check tire pressure and tread wear on all tires.
- Turn headlights to "on" instead of "auto."
- Drive slowly on the roads, even if that's under the speed limit.
BROADCAST SCRIPT:
Rain or shine. Well, when it comes to roadways, it makes a big difference.
"Those speed limits are set for Sunny and great conditions, not for rain, frozen or anything like that."
Sergeant Justin Ruiz with the Department of Public Safety says Monday – two crashes resulted in three deaths and several other crashes caused major injuries – all because of wet roads.
"Everybody did great for the freezing weather that came in. We didn't have a whole big influx of crashes. But I think with the wet weather, people are just they're still trying to drive the speed limit. I think that's the biggest cause of a lot of crashes when it rains, is unsafe speed, which means that they weren't technically speeding over the speed limit. They were just going too fast for the roadway conditions."
So, here are some tips to help keep you safe on the roads.
Go ahead and change those light settings from "Auto" to "On."
"With the way daylight is, sometimes those automatic lights shut off. So if it's, you know, raining really hard, but there's still some light, no one's gonna be able to see you."
And once you're on the road –
"If you see water over the roadway, don't try to go through it because you don't know how fast that water is going. Let's slow down a little bit, give ourselves some extra time to make sure that we're getting from point A to point B safely."