Articles Posted in Car Accidents

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The non-profit National Safety Council has published an excellent tip sheet to help parents prepare teen drivers for the special challenges that come with winter.

Oregon car accidents can happen any time of the year, of course, but winter is different. As the website notes: “Winter conditions can challenge even the most experienced drivers. It is incumbent upon a parent to prepare a teen as best as possible for driving under those difficult circumstances that adverse weather brings.”

Many of these recommendations are so basic that one might overlook them, but they bear repeating: slow down, factor in more travel time to get from point A to point B so you don’t unconsciously feel a need to rush; gently test a moving car’s brakes when ice and snow are present to get a sense of road conditions; don’t use high beams when it is snowing. Don’t use the cruise control in the snow either. Keep a greater distance between vehicles than one does in easier driving conditions.

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The death of a Portland bike rider on Barbur Boulevard last August has given new urgency to proposals to change the balance of cars and bikes along this important commuting artery.

As a recent article in The Oregonian outlines, an advocacy group, the Bicycle Transportation Alliance, is urging the ODOT “to put a harrowing section of the high-speed boulevard on a “road diet.” Essentially the group wants a northbound auto lane removed to make space for about two miles of buffered bike lanes and pedestrian paths in both directions of the critical north-south corridor.”

As one might expect many drivers are unhappy with this plan, citing the fact that, according to The Oregonian, ODOT relies on Barbur to relieve rush-hour traffic pressure on I-5. What is different about this dispute is the fact that commuting has emerged as the focus for both sides in this debate. Unusually for these sort of debates, the question is not one of balancing roadways against recreational bikeways but, rather, of balancing the needs of different types of commuters in a city that prides itself on its bike-friendly attitude. The paper reports that “nearly 800 bicycle commuters a day” travel along the route. For the cycling community Barbur is especially important as it offers a relatively flat route through hilly Southwest Portland.

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A report this week in The Oregonian is a welcome example of our legal system at work. The account of the conviction of a reckless Oregon hit and run driver who caused a two-vehicle crash in Tualatin is a reminder that the justice system can and does work for victims and our broader society alike.

According to the newspaper the 24-year-old man was arrested for causing the crash in a parking lot adjacent to Martinazzi Avenue in Tualatin last January. “Witnesses told police a man in a pick-up was driving erratically and struck another vehicle,” The Oregonian writes. “The suspect’s vehicle then hopped a curb near the roundabout at Southwest Avery Avenue and 86th Street and struck a road sign. Witnesses also said the driver didn’t stop for a red light” and that while doing all of this he narrowly missed a pedestrian.

Once arrested the suspect was charged with DUII, hit-and-run and reckless driving. Now, five and a half months later, he has been convicted, and will serve time in jail, pay a fine and lose his driving license for three years. The man was initially eligible for a diversion program but lost that status, according to the newspaper, when he was arrested again in February.

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A three-vehicle Polk County, Oregon car accident over the weekend left one man dead and five people hospitalized, according to a report in The Oregonian.

The Oregon auto accident took place in the town of Dallas, about 60 miles southwest of Portland. The newspaper, quoting the Oregon State Police, reports that the sequence of events began Saturday evening when a van driven by a man from Woodburn “was heading west when it traveled across the center line and collided” with a vehicle headed in the opposite direction on State Route 22.

The driver of the eastbound vehicle was a 69-year-old Silverton man. He was pronounced dead by paramedics responding to the accident. Two other people in the car were taken to a Salem hospital with what The Oregonian describes as “critical” injuries. The driver of the van was not seriously injured in the initial crash, but was struck by a third vehicle, a westbound pickup truck, when he stopped to assess the initial accident. He was taken to the same Salem hospital as the victims in the car and is reported to be suffering from “serious injuries.” The two people in the third vehicle were treated in McMinnville for minor injuries.

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The union representing Tri-Met workers has rejected proposed work rules that would have allowed bus and other transit drivers in the Portland area to work 14-hour shifts, according to a report published in The Oregonian.

The paper reports that “the union representing operators, mechanics and support staff quickly rejected the plan on Monday, saying it didn’t go far enough to address the growing problem with exhaustion.” The paper quotes a union leader saying “No human being, especially one transporting passengers through city traffic, can safely operate a bus over a 14-hour workday, day-after-day.”

The proposed work rules would “limit” drivers to a 14-hour workday and require at 10 hours off between shifts. According to the paper the proposed work plan would have applied to drivers of both buses and light-rail trains. The paper notes that “the current policy, based on service days, makes it easy for a driver to finagle extra overtime by working marathon runs.”

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Figures published recently in The Oregonian paint a distressing picture of the safety situation for pedestrians here in Oregon. Citing data compiled by the Oregon Department of Transportation the paper reports that “pedestrian deaths in Oregon are up 23 percent over last year.”

With the death in late October of a 58-year-old man on the Hawthorne Bridge the total number of Oregon pedestrian deaths for 2012 reached 48. “That matches the total for all of 2011,” the paper reports, citing an ODOT spokeswoman. The victim of this latest fatal Oregon car accident involving a pedestrian was struck by an eastbound car as he crossed from one side of the bridge to the other. He had been using the bridge to watch his wife compete in a rowing race.

The sharp rise in pedestrian fatalities is especially surprising since bicycle-related deaths have fallen over the same period. The Oregonian reports that bicycle deaths have dropped 41 percent: seven this year compared to 12 during the same period in 2011.

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This week – from now until Saturday September 22 – is National Child Passenger Safety Week. It is an excellent time to remind ourselves of the importance of preventing injuries to children in Oregon auto accidents.

Here in Oregon the public awareness events for National Child Passenger Safety Week are being led by SafeKids Oregon. The SafeKids webpage devoted to the week and its related activities opens with some stark statistics that put the problem into perspective:

“Motor vehicle traffic crashes,” it notes, “remain the leading cause of death for children ages 1 through 12 years old.” It also notes that fully 75% of children riding in American cars “are not as secure as they should be because their car seats are not being used correctly.”

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The Oregonian reports that a Portland auto accident involving a car and a Tri-Met bus recently sent two people to the hospital with what authorities described as “minor injuries.”

Citing a spokesperson for the Portland-area bus service, the newspaper reports that the accident recently occurred “at Southeast 7th Avenue and Southeast Taylor Street. She said the vehicle, carrying three people, is believed to have been traveling at a high speed when the driver failed to stop and struck the bus on its left side.”

Both of the injured people transported to hospital were traveling in the car. The bus driver was not injured and the bus, which was traveling to a Tri-Met garage at the time of the Oregon car and bus accident, was carrying no passengers. That last fact is fortunate: it is likely that the lack of passengers minimized the potential damage from the Portland car crash.

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Accidents involving school buses are arresting enough, but for two Oregon school bus accidents to take place in the same town – on the same road – in just three days is, to say the least, striking.

According to the Albany Democrat-Herald the first accident took place on a Friday afternoon earlier this month in Lebanon, southeast of Salem. In that incident, “a van pulling onto Highway 20 from Highway 226 hit the left side of a Bandon School District bus,” the newspaper reports. The van’s driver and her passenger – an elderly couple from Corvallis – were both hospitalized with “non-life-threatening injuries.” Two students on the bus were also injured and were taken to a separate hospital.

The following Monday, in the second incident, a nine-year-old boy was injured as the result of another Oregon School Bus crash on Highway 20. This incident, which took place just north of Lebanon, was part of a three vehicle Oregon car crash that began when one car waiting to make a left turn was rear-ended by another vehicle. The impact sent the first car out into the intersection, and into the path of the oncoming school bus. In addition to the child on the bus, the driver of the car that caused the rear-end collision was injured in the incident.

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A tragic central Oregon car crash has left a teen driver dead and injured four others according to reports in The Oregonian.

The crash took place on US route 26 near Madras, Oregon. According to the newspaper, a 17-year old driver traveling toward the east “drifted off the north shoulder of the road, according to state police. The 17-year-old driver then overcorrected the car and it crossed into the westbound lane where it collided with a westbound 2006 Chrysler van.”

The teen driver was pronounced dead at the scene of the accident. Her passenger, also a 17-year-old girl, was transported to a hospital in Madras with what the paper describes as serious injuries. The driver of the van, a 38-year-old Portland man, and his two children all suffered what were described as minor injuries in the Oregon car crash and were released after treatment at the area hospital.

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