In Texas, the public has no right to read inspection reports

Express-News's John Tedesco reports an accident which happend nearly 6 years ago. A tugboat and its four heavy barges slammed into the Queen Isabella Causeway nearly six years ago. It killed eight motorists. A laywer Michael Slack wanted to get the information about the inspection records of the bridege but was not able to get the information. Because Texas Department of transportation said that they were not able to entitled to the information. Public can find out the latest inspection date of a bridge, its location, when it was built and whether it is structurally sound. But not able to get the infomation about the details about Texas' bridges.

After reading this article I thought that government should allow public to know about the information of the bridges. I definitely think that publics deserves those rights to know about the facilities that they are using for their every day lives. Especially when the accidents occur, for those of the victims or the family of the victims should have right to know about the situations or status of the bridge.The article also reports that the law says inspection records for transportation projects that receive federal funding cannot be used as evidence in court. However, in my opinion when the accident happened and if there is any possibility that the bridge might cause the accident, public should be able to use the inspection record as an evidents on the court. I believe that if those inspections were done for the public's interests, they should be available for pubic's need.

to see the article
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/metro/stories/MYSA080307.6A.TexasBridges.34315f1.html