The crash of a small aircraft near Vancouver this week is a reminder that Oregon and Washington product safety concerns can apply to large items, like an airplane. According to The Oregonian a passenger on the small plane died and the pilot was critically injured in the Washington small aircraft…
A recent announcement by the Hillsboro police department, as reported in The Oregonian, comes as a welcome addition to the summer: the department plans to “have designated officers focused on distracted driving throughout the summer.” Hillsboro officers working specially designated overtime shifts (funded, the paper notes, by an outside grant)…
I have written in the past about the importance of window safety. Too many people forget at this time of year that screens are designed to keep bugs out, not to keep children in, and fail to take essential precautions. This reminder is prompted by a recent report in The…
A recent article in The Oregonian offered the following somewhat surprising revelation: despite deaths from motorcycle crashes having “more than doubled since the mid-1990s” several major motorcycle-focused lobbying groups are advocating for fewer regulations and less enforcement concerning helmets. The paper writes that lobbyists and their congressional allies want the…
An important decision announced yesterday by the Oregon Supreme Court bolsters both the principle of openness in our court system and the idea that a key function of the courts is to enforce accountability. According to the New York Times a unanimous ruling by the Oregon Supreme Court “cleared the…
Last week a graduating University of Oregon senior was sentenced to three years in prison for the Eugene drunk driving death of a fellow student, according to the Eugene Register-Guard. The victim, a Scot who was also attending UO, was riding his bike in a marked bike lane when he…
National attention has been focused this week on a Massachusetts teenager convicted on charges of motor vehicle homicide in a case related to distracted driving. The teenager maintained his innocence, claiming he was distracted by worries about his homework load but not by his phone, according to a report by…
Depending on how one looks at it, the view expressed by automakers in a recent New York Times article represents either a resigned but forward-looking attitude toward electronics and driving, or a bid to maximize profits with little regard to the dangers of distracted driving here in Oregon and elsewhere…
A recent article in the Sacramento Bee is a telling reminder of the importance of workplace safety here in Oregon and of the sort of precautions businesses ought to be taking to avoid Oregon industrial accidents. According to an Associated Press report posted on the newspaper’s website, a 60-year old…
The death of an avid cyclist in a Portland bike and car accident earlier this month has turned a spotlight on bike boxes – the green areas at intersections that the city began adding several years ago in an effort to make Portland more bicycle-friendly. As I noted last week,…