Articles Posted in Car Accidents

When you suffer serious injuries in an auto accident, you have many needs. Of course, the most immediate need is to recover and heal. You will also need to seek accountability from those whose negligent or reckless conduct contributed to your accident. When it is time, seek help from an experienced Oregon auto accident lawyer. The right legal team can help you in many essential ways. These include performing a thorough investigation, which is often a vital precursor to identifying who was responsible for your accident and who owes you compensation for the damages they caused you, and then taking that proof to get justice for you.

As an example, we can look at a 2025 interstate highway crash that spawned both criminal and civil action. In that crash, an 18-year-old Linn County woman was allegedly driving at a high rate of speed when she lost control while navigating a “slight curve.” The teen’s BMW 528 left its travel lane and crashed into a Ford Explorer in the other eastbound lane. The Ford spun out and flipped multiple times.

The harm to the Ford’s occupants, an Idaho family, was severe. The driver, a 72-year-old male, was ejected from the Explorer and died at the scene. The driver’s spouse, a 66-year-old female, was also ejected from the vehicle and suffered a spinal fracture and 12 broken ribs, in addition to other broken bones. The couple’s child, a 35-year-old female, was partially ejected from the SUV, had “to be extricated from underneath the Explorer,” and suffered life-threatening injuries that required her to be airlifted to a Level 1 trauma center in Seattle.

Continue reading

Earlier this week, one man died, and more than a dozen others were hurt in a four-vehicle crash that took place on Highway 30 in Clatsop County, about 12 miles east of Astoria. This accident, which included a wrong-way driver, multiple vehicles, and numerous injuries, is a powerful reminder of the complexities that can be involved in an auto accident. To get what you should from insurance claims and civil legal action after a multi-vehicle crash, you need an experienced advocate and should act quickly to retain a skilled Oregon auto accident lawyer.

The preliminary investigation indicated that the westbound driver, a 65-year-old man driving a Ford pickup truck, entered the eastbound lane and “sideswiped” an eastbound Ram truck. The Ford continued traveling the wrong way in the eastbound lane and then hit an eastbound van carrying a group of National Guard members who had just completed training. Another eastbound driver could not stop in time and hit the wrong-way truck and the guard members’ van.

The wrong-way driver, who officials believe was not wearing a seatbelt, died at the scene. The National Guard member driving the van suffered serious injuries. More than a dozen other passengers and drivers suffered minor injuries.

Continue reading

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, roughly 1/3 of all motor vehicle accidents in the United States are single-vehicle crashes. Of those, more than 2/3 (roughly 70%) involve vehicles running off the road. Even if no other vehicle is involved, these accidents can be very serious or even catastrophic. While single-vehicle crashes account for only 33% of all crashes, they account for 53% of all traffic fatalities, according to the National Safety Council. If you are a passenger who was hurt in a single-vehicle crash, you have rights. To protect yourself and your ability to get a proper recovery, start by talking to an experienced Oregon auto accident lawyer about your situation.

One such accident occurred earlier this month in eastern Oregon. According to the Oregon State Police’s investigation, a Honda CRV was traveling eastbound on Interstate 84 “when it left the freeway for an unknown reason,” Apple Valley News Now reported. The CRV subsequently entered the median, went airborne, and caught fire upon landing.

The driver suffered serious injuries. A passenger in the CRV died at the scene.

Continue reading

Drivers navigate potential dangers every day, often without realizing it. For example, statistics show that more than 12,000 fatal crashes occur at intersections. More than 1 in 5 (22%) involve a driver turning left. According to Nationwide Mutual Insurance, left-turn accidents represent the #2 “most frequent high-severity type of auto claim,” behind only rear-end collisions. While drivers making left turns are often at fault in their crashes, that is not a universal truth. Determining who was at fault in any collision, including a left-turn crash, involves careful investigation and analysis by a seasoned professional, which is why securing the services of an experienced Oregon motor vehicle accident lawyer is so important.

A fatal crash in Klamath County is just one of the latest examples of how dangerous intersections can be. In the Klamath County incident, L.K., a 71-year-old woman behind the wheel of a Chrysler PT Cruiser, was executing a left turn from eastbound Highway 140 to northbound Highway 39. According to the Oregon State Police’s preliminary investigation, the woman stopped at the intersection’s stop sign but then pulled out onto Highway 39 without yielding the right of way to oncoming traffic. A southbound Kia Sedona van crashed into the Chrysler. The van’s occupants suffered minor injuries, but L.K. died at the scene.

In most situations, left-hand turn crashes are the fault of the driver making the left turn. That is true because the law requires drivers making left turns to yield the right of way to oncoming traffic.

Continue reading

Attorneys spend copious ink (and digital bandwidth) encouraging readers to consult legal counsel if they have been hurt in a vehicle crash. This advice is not self-serving — many researchers have surveyed the subject, and the results consistently show that injury victims with legal representation fare better (both in terms of success versus defeat and the amounts recovered) than self-represented victims. If you have been seriously hurt in an accident, one of your first steps should be to contact an experienced Oregon auto accident lawyer.

On TV, cases often turn on some sudden in-court revelation. In real life, the seeds of success (or failure) can be sown long before trial during the pre-trial investigation process.

Take, for example, an incident that occurred last month about 20 miles south of Portland. On the afternoon of September 26, a multi-vehicle crash closed the northbound lanes of Interstate 5. The collision claimed a total of seven vehicles. At the time that FOX 12 reported on the accident, the Oregon State Police disclosed that some of the vehicles’ occupants were injured, but did not say how many or how severe their injuries were.

Continue reading

One of roughly every 80 auto accidents involves a driver who crashed due to a medical emergency. The vast majority of these involved people who experienced “seizures, blackouts, or diabetic reactions,” according to the data collected by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. When you are hurt in a crash involving an at-fault driver with medical problems, the defense may try to use that medical condition to avoid liability. Countering that may require a variety of steps. An experienced Oregon auto accident lawyer can advise you on what actions can help strengthen your case.

Deschutes County was the site of one of those accidents earlier this month. According to the Bend Police, a 61-year-old man driving southbound on the Bend Parkway “had a medical event” that caused his pickup truck to veer into the northbound lanes. There, the truck crashed head-on into a Toyota van.

The force of the collision partially ejected the van driver from her vehicle. Central Oregon Daily reported that both drivers were hurt and that the woman suffered life-threatening harm. The police cited the truck driver for careless driving, which caused an accident. The police did not disclose the nature of the medical event that afflicted the truck driver.

Continue reading

Mid-February 2025 has brought another highway death in Yamhill County. The incident occurred along a part of Highway 99W in Yamhill County that has been the home of numerous serious and fatal crashes in the past. When stretches of highway become notorious for their dangerousness, that reputation frequently springs from various factors. Often, it includes driver negligence. Sometimes, it also includes negligence in the road’s design, maintenance, or repair. When you have been catastrophically injured (or have lost a loved one) in an accident along a notorious highway, you need a skilled Oregon auto accident lawyer representing you to get to the bottom of what happened and why. Only then can you be properly equipped to begin holding accountable the people and entities who were genuinely responsible.

In the February 19th collision, a Washington State man behind the wheel of a Chevrolet pickup truck attempted to turn onto Highway 18 from southbound Highway 99W when he “entered the path of a northbound Toyota Yaris… causing a side impact collision.” The driver of the truck suffered minor injuries. The crash killed the driver of the Toyota, a 31-year-old woman from McMinnville.

The mid-February accident was far from unusual. The “Y” intersection where Highways 99W and 18 meet near Dayton has been the site of many prominent (and deadly) collisions. In early December, a 45-year-old Newburg man lost his life after a crash at the same intersection. The man’s Mercury Grand Marquis collided with a motorhome, and he died a short time later at Willamette Valley Medical Center.

Continue reading