Boats play a significant role in Brownsville-area commerce and recreation. Residents here kayak the waters of San Martin Lake and Bahia Grande, navigate the Brownsville shipping channel for work, and dock their pleasure vessels in nearby Port Isabel.

With all the boating activity happening in and around Brownsville, accidents are bound to happen. And they do, causing severe injuries and fatalities to innocent victims.

Kenny Perez Law represents Texans in lawsuits and insurance claims seeking compensation for injuries caused by someone else’s careless or wrongful conduct. Contact our Brownsville boating accident attorneys to learn how we can help after a Brownsville-area boating accident harms you or a loved one.

Most boating accidents in Brownsville involve some degree of human error. Below you’ll find some common ways negligent or reckless boaters cause accidents in and around Brownsville that harm innocent victims.

Even if you do not see the cause of your boating accident below, however, the Brownsville boating accident attorneys at Kenny Perez Law invites you to contact us for a free consultation to learn about your rights to compensation.

Similar to driving a car, boat navigation requires boaters to pay attention to their surroundings at all times, and to take care to watch out for hazards like rocks, bad weather, other vessels, and swimmers. According to U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) data on recreational boating accidents, operator inattention is the most common cause of preventable incidents on the water.

Electronic device use contributes to inattentiveness on the water. Boaters frequently get distracted by their phones or their onboard GPS plots and depth finders, for example. Eating food at the helm, talking with a passenger, or towing a float or a water-skier can also contribute to dangerous boater inattention.

Consumption of alcohol is a common cause of fatal and nonfatal boating accidents, according to the USCG, especially in Texas. Alcohol use causes accidents on the water in numerous ways. It impairs operators’ ability to navigate and steer safely, and increases the chance of them making a mistake that leads to a collision or running aground.

It contributes to on-board falls that lead to lacerations and broken bones. Boat passengers who consume alcohol have a heightened risk of drowning, suffering from heat-stroke, and falling overboard. In short, drinking and boating is a bad idea with potentially deadly consequences.

Boats, like cars, must maintain a safe speed at all times. Texas does not have a numerical speed limit on its open waters, but ports and channels may post speed limits. The Brownsville ship channel, for example, has a speed limit of eight knots. Regardless of the presence of a fixed speed limit on the water, boaters can receive a citation for operating at unsafe speeds. Some locations may maintain no-wake zones, for example.

The dangers of speeding in a boat are probably obvious to most boaters, although that does not necessarily stop them from doing it. Operating a vessel at an unsafe speed leaves insufficient time to react to hazards, lengthens a boat’s stopping distance, and may cause a hazardous wake that can damage or interfere with other vessels.

Brownsville boaters cannot control the weather, but they do have an obligation to make safe decisions about when and how to navigate in any given weather condition. Boaters who ignore marine forecasts and posted advisories, and instead steer into bad weather, face a host of unnecessary risks. High winds and strong waves may capsize the boat, push it off course, or damage onboard equipment, to name just a few hazards that can lead to serious and fatal injuries on Brownsville-area waters.

If you suffered injuries in a preventable Brownsville-area boating accident, then chances are you have the right to receive compensation from the at-fault party. The team at Kenny Perez Law knows how to secure compensation for boating accident victims like you.

Anyone whose unreasonably dangerous decisions or actions led to the boating accident that injured you may owe you compensation under Texas law.

That might include, for example:

Contact Kenny Perez and his team today to learn who might owe you damages for the harm you suffered in a Brownsville boating accident.

Every Brownsville boating accident is different.

However, in most cases, the Kenny Perez Law team can seek compensation for boat accident victims that includes payment for:

In cases where the actions causing a boating accident were especially extreme, Kenny may also secure payment of punitive damages on behalf of a client.