Articles Posted in Motor Vehicle Accidents

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The scandal surrounding defective auto airbags manufactured by the Japanese company Takata got worse this week. According to a story just published by the New York Times “Honda Motor Co. said Friday that it would recall 5.7 million cars worldwide in the latest round of recalls involving Takata Corp. air bag inflators that can explode and hurl shrapnel into the vehicle.”

The paper reports that about 2.2 million of those vehicles are here in the United States. That’s on top of the 24 million units from Honda and other companies that were already on the recall list in the United States alone – and tens of millions more worldwide. It is a scandal that has only grown over the last year. According to the Times 11 deaths and at least 139 injuries have been inked to the shrapnel-laden airbags..

The latest recall notices came just days after senators Edward Markey of Massachusetts and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut “called on the Obama administration in a letter to force the recall of every Takata airbag that uses a propellant that contains a compound called ammonium nitrate, which can degrade over time and become unstable,” according to a separate Times article published earlier in the week.

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A recent blog posting at the Bike Portland website highlights a decision by the city’s Development Commission to spend $88 million to purchase the main downtown post office building (the post notes that the main postal sorting facility is expected to relocate from downtown “to a site near the airport”). That might not seem like it would have an immediate effect on the cycling community, but its impact could be far-reaching.

As the advocacy group outlines, when the post office’s local headquarters moves out of the city center “hundreds of daily truck trips will vanish from the Pearl District area… and the street grid between the north Pearl and the Willamette River will connect for the first time in more than 50 years.” That development alone could have a huge impact on the number of bike accidents in central Portland.

Looking more broadly, the group believes the project will mean better biking connections to the Broadway Bridge. The group also states that “in addition, the bike lanes on Broadway and Lovejoy are due to be upgraded to protected bike lanes.” The proposal is part of a larger plan to create a “Green Loop” consisting of “low-stress bikeways circling the central city” and a large public plaza in front of Union Station. In short, it is a plan that ought to make our famously bike-friendly city an even better place to walk or cycle.

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I have often written about the fact that we tend to think of distracted driving as something that teens and 20-somethings are especially prone to, despite a growing body of evidence identifying this as a problem that affects every age group.

The latest reminder that this is not just a young person’s issue comes from Greenhouse Management magazine. Under the headline “It Can Wait – Even the Job” the magazine offers some pointed advice: “business owners, CEOs, managers and other figures in the corporate world are slower on the uptake than they should be” at a time when for many of us the demands of the office are such that “daily tasks, such as driving to work, can easily become an afterthought when an important call, text or email comes in.”

The article also raises an noteworthy legal point: “Although it is commonly assumed that employees using personal cellphones in their personal vehicles are liable to nobody but themselves in the event of a crash, (President of consulting firm OperationsInc David) Lewis said the argument could be made that employers are responsible for how and when their employees take and return business calls and messages.” As an Oregon distracted driving lawyer I agree with this analysis. It is a basic principle of law that employers are responsible for what employees do during the course and scope of their jobs.

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Police say marijuana was involved in last weekend’s hit-and-run death of a Portland cyclist, according to The Oregonian. The newspaper quotes Portland police saying the 38 year old bike rider “was wearing a helmet and the back of his bike was equipped with a flashing red light” when he was struck from behind by a 26-year-old driver.

The fatal Oregon bike accident occurred early Saturday evening “in the 4200 block of Northeast Lombard Street, which is also called Portland Highway.” The Oregonian reports that the driver left the scene of the accident but was arrested shortly thereafter about three miles away. The suspect has been booked “into Multnomah County jail on accusations of second-degree manslaughter, reckless driving and driving under the influence of intoxicants.” The cyclist died at the scene of the Oregon bike accident.

The legalization of recreational marijuana use here in Oregon will create new and potentially challenging legal issues over the coming years, but when looking at an accident like this it is important to keep the basic facts in mind. Based on the published accounts citing local police this fatal bike accident involved an impaired and irresponsible driver.

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Portland’s drive to eliminate bike and pedestrian deaths within a decade, known as “Vision Zero”, took an important step forward this week with the release of a 78-page “vision statement”, according to a recent blog post by Bike Portland. The document was prepared by the city’s Bureau of Transportation and was distributed to the Vision Zero task force on Monday. In the words of Bike Portland, the document “offers the first glimpse into the concrete steps PBOT might take in this unprecedented safety effort.”

As I wrote a year ago, the “Vision Zero” idea is modeled on a program originally introduced by New York City mayor Bill de Blasio. The goal, in both Portland and New York, is to bring dramatic safety improvements to the city’s streets over the course of a decade and, in doing so, to eliminate pedestrian and cyclist deaths while also making the roads safer for drivers.

A key component of the plan is applying sophisticated data analysis to decision-making about traffic, pedestrian and bike safety. As Bike Portland notes, one slide in this week’s PBOT presentation showed that 62 percent of all fatal crashes in the city involve drugs or alcohol, and that of that total alcohol accounted for eight of every ten crashes. The clear message is that drunk driving education and enforcement must be significant components of any city-wide traffic safety plan.

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As 2015 winds down we can look forward to many things in the New Year. Among them: a new law that will be an enormous boon to ordinary Oregonians. SB 411, which Governor Kate Brown signed last March, is slated to take effect on January 1. As that day approaches it is useful to pause and remind ourselves why this measure is so important. I wrote about this law last spring when the governor was considering whether or not to sign it and am pleased to offer this follow-up on the eve of its coming into force.

As summarized by the healthcare newsletter “The Lund Report”, SB 411 “takes two actions to bring Oregon auto insurance law in line with other states – it allows an injured person to receive the full benefit both of their own policy and the injury protection of the driver who caused the accident. It also requires the at-fault motorists’ insurance to pay the injured party’s claims first, before paying back money the other motorist’s insurance paid out for personal injury protection.”

That may sound like a fairly common-sense decision, but as Lund outlines, right now Oregon, unlike many other states, operates under a quite different system. “Current law requires the liable motorists’ injury coverage to be deducted from the non-liable party’s coverage for underinsurance, so that if each party is insured against injuries for $25,000, only $25,000 will be available for the injured person.” This bill, in other words, replaces a system designed to protect the bottom lines of insurance companies with one focused on helping injured Oregonians get the help they deserve.

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A study recently released by the Oregon Department of Transportation appears to show that careful and comprehensive education efforts can have a significant impact on distracted driving, according to a recent report by Bend TV station KTVZ. The station quotes an ODOT report finding that “a coordinated high-visibility campaign in Bend aimed at reducing distracted driving had a significant impact on raising awareness of the importance of not texting/talking while driving.”

According to the TV station, the study was co-sponsored by the ODOT, Portland State University and Bend’s police department. “The report shows, among other findings, that almost 12 percent of people who were exposed to the “U Drive, U Text, U Pay” message reduced their texting-while-driving activity,” KTVZ reports.

Considering that the tagline of the campaign focused on money – the fines drivers can receive if they violate Oregon’s distracted driving laws – it is especially noteworthy that the study found that “the most common reason for respondents decreasing their texting-while-driving was ‘increased awareness of safety.’” This reason was cited by 30 percent of the drivers studied. In other words: while the campaign slogan focuses on drivers’ wallets the program was successful because it helped convince Oregon drivers that safety issues come first.

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An Oregon car accident near Amity on route 99W sent a highway worker to the hospital last week. According to The Oregonian, a ‘flagger’ employed by a private company was “taken to a Portland hospital with serious injuries” after being struck by a car in the early evening. The Oregon traffic accident occurred near milepost 47 on Route 99W and closed the road to traffic for what the newspaper describes as “an extended period of time.”

The paper reports that the driver remained on the scene and cooperated with police. It also, however, reports that investigators believe “alcohol or drugs may have been a factor” in the incident and that they are considering criminal charges against the driver.

On its surface this might seem like a fairly straightforward Oregon traffic accident case. The specifics, however, raise several interesting legal questions. We would normally suppose a highway worker injured on the job to be covered by workman’s comp, but the fact that the flagger was injured by a third party – the driver – changes the situation in some ways. Most notably, if drugs or alcohol were, indeed, involved in the accident that opens the possibility of a legal claim under Oregon’s social host and dram shop laws against not only the driver but also the individual, bar or liquor store that gave or sold the driver drugs or alcohol. Because Oregon requires training in the specifics of its dram shop laws for all bartenders this sort of liability can be especially difficult to avoid.

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As an article in today’s Oregonian warns, Halloween has long been a night when pedestrians and drivers alike need to exercise particular caution. This year, however, the fact that October 31 is also the evening when we move from daylight saving time back to standard time makes tonight especially dangerous.

Halloween has always been a night when everyone should be especially aware of the possibility of injuries to children. In the twilight and early evening hours small children – many wearing dark costumes – are running around residential neighborhoods all over the country. The danger of a car accident rises significantly even for the most careful of drivers. The Oregonian reports that Halloween is traditionally the third-worst day of the year for pedestrian fatalities, surpassed only by New Year’s Day and December 23.

In recent decades, however, Halloween has also emerged as an adult party night with a reputation for drinking and driving that rivals New Year’s Eve. According to today’s article “in 2012 when 54 pedestrians died in car crashes on Halloween nationwide, nearly half of those deaths involved a drunk driver.”

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The latest phase of the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety’s long running investigation of distracted driving and its causes highlights some potentially disturbing issues, according to a recent article published by MyCentralOregon.com. As the website notes, “the results raise new and unexpected concerns regarding the use of phones and vehicle information systems while driving.”

Specifically, the study challenges the common assumption that switching to hands-free devices solves most distracted driving problems. According to the website, the study concluded that “potentially unsafe mental distractions can persist after a driver dials, changes music or sends a text using voice commands on a voice-activated system.” Especially interesting is the focus on things we do not usually think of when we use the term “distracted driving,” such as using a car’s music or navigation systems.

More critical, however, is the discovery that distracted problems go far beyond cellphones, and cannot be solved simply by switching to headsets, in part because the distraction these devices create lingers even after one’s attention returns to driving.

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