Motor Vehicle Accidents

July 7, 2015

Bike Portland Announces Progress on Reducing Portland Bike Accidents

A blog post this week from Bike Portland contained some good news for all of us concerned about bike and car accidents here in the city: “After more than a year of focused activism… one of Portland’s highest-traffic neighborhood greenways has been chosen as the site of a traffic calming pilot project.”

The announcement referred to Clinton Street where, it said, Portland will soon begin building a series of “diverters, speed bumps and signage” designed to slow down traffic in an area that a city study found “has some of the higher auto traffic volumes and speeds in the neighborhood greenway system” according to Bike Portland.

The group notes that “Diverters are already used on many neighborhood greenways to allow foot and bike traffic while blocking car traffic at certain intersections, preventing it from being useful to non-local car traffic.” (if you are unsure what exactly a “diverter” is click on the link below and look at the photo accompanying the article)

July 2, 2015

Oregon Truck Accidents May Have Links to Potentially Faulty Trailer Hitches

by Matthew D. Kaplan

An article published yesterday in the Washington Post reported that since early last year the federal government has been “investigating a potentially high rate of trailer separations.” The research focuses specifically on a particular type of trailer hitch used on semi-trailer trucks, known as the “Ultra LT.” According to the paper the Ultra LT is manufactured by Alabama-based Fontaine Fifth Wheel.

“The Ultra LT could be in use on as many as 6,000 semis across the nation,” the Post reports. According to the newspaper the company is cooperating with the government investigation.

This potentially unsafe product, and the Oregon truck accidents it may lead to, is a cause for special worry because it has been nearly 18 months since the Ohio accident that set the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s investigation in motion.

June 29, 2015

Government and Google Team Up to Prevent Rail Crossing Accidents

by Matthew D. Kaplan

Today the federal government is announcing a partnership with Google aimed at preventing accidents at railroad crossings, according to the New York Times. The newspaper reports that the Federal Railroad Administration will work with the tech giant “to provide the locations of all grade crossings” and make them available on Google’s maps.

The initiative follows “a sharp increase in the number of rail crossing accidents last year,” according to the Times. “Last year, 270 people died in highway-rail collisions, up from 232 the previous year, and 843 people were injured, according to federal safety statistics… Grade crossing accidents are the second-highest cause of rail fatalities after trespassing accidents, which killed 533 people last year.”

The scope of the project, however, is vast, which may be part of the reason why there is no target date for its completion. According to the Times there are well over 200,000 grade crossings nationwide. By pinpointing those locations in the mapping software that runs phones, GPS units and car navigation systems the company hopes, initially, to make it clearer where the danger spots lie. Over time it should eventually be possible to include information warning about oncoming trains in real time. According to the Times the FRA is also reaching out to Apple, MapQuest, TomTom and Garmin with proposals for similar programs.

June 28, 2015

Oregon Car Crash Leaves One Dead Near Tillamook

by Matthew D. Kaplan

A three-vehicle Oregon car accident near Tillamook this weekend took the life of a 79 year old man from Aloha, Oregon in Washington County.

The Oregonian, citing the Oregon State Police, reports that the accident took place on State Route 6 Saturday afternoon when “a 2013 Hyundai Elantra… was stopped on Wilson River Loop and attempting to turn east onto Oregon 6 when it pulled out in front of a westbound 2003 Chevrolet Silverado. The Silverado’s 16-year-old driver attempted but was unable to stop and collided with the driver’s side of the sedan.” As the crash unfolded both of the vehicles then hit a third.

The driver of the Elantra was pronounced dead at the scene of the accident, according to The Oregonian, while his passenger, a 78-year-old woman was “airlifted to a Portland-area hospital.” There were no reported injuries to either the teenager driving the Silverado or to any of the three people in the third vehicle – among them a three-year-old child. According to the newspaper all of the occupants of all three vehicles were wearing seat belts.

June 23, 2015

Senate Hearing is Latest Twist in Takata Recall Saga

by Matthew D. Kaplan

On the eve of a US Senate hearing focused on the Takata airbag recall, Senate Democrats have issued “a 45-page report into the nation’s largest-ever recall of about 34 million vehicles by 11 automakers for air bags that can explode and send shrapnel flying,” according to the Detroit News. The paper notes that it was only last Friday that the airbag manufacturer acknowledged an eighth documented death linked to its defective safety equipment.

According to the newspaper, the Senate report found that more than a decade after engineers first became aware of the problem “no one can identify a root cause for the ruptures.” The defect in the Takata airbags causes the gas canisters used to inflate the bags to explode, sending potentially lethal shrapnel flying into the faces and bodies of people riding in the car.

As company executives prepare to face Congress another fact reported by the Detroit News is even more shocking. According to the Senate document, even the replacement parts Takata is providing to millions of families here in Oregon and around the country are not necessarily safe. “Takata is currently producing hundreds of thousands of replacement inflators each month that may or may not completely eliminate the risk of air bag rupture,” the report says. The idea that the company is replacing defective and potentially fatal air bag inflators with parts that may themselves also be defective is difficult to comprehend.

June 4, 2015

Distracted Driving Involves More than Just Phones

by Matthew D. Kaplan

We tend to think of distracted driving as something involving cellphones or, perhaps, overuse of a GPS or an in-dash entertainment system, but an Oregon bus accident this week offers a strong reminder of just how broad the term actually is.

According to a report in The Oregonian “the driver of a shuttle bus that crashed Saturday morning on Interstate 5 near Woodburn was trying to retrieve a water bottle when he lost control” of the vehicle. The accident occurred near milepost 269 in I-5’s southbound lane. The 35-person bus had only two passengers in addition to the 72-year-old driver, according to the paper. All three people suffered minor injuries when the bus “crossed the center median, broke a cable barrier, crossed the northbound lanes, went off the road and rolled onto the driver’s side.”

The bus hit a car as it crossed the northbound interstate but no one in that vehicle was injured. Two northbound lanes of the highway were closed “for several hours,” The Oregonian reports.

May 31, 2015

New Products to Combat Distracted Driving May Actually Make Things Worse

by Matthew D. Kaplan

Last week the New York Times published a long article looking at a number of so-called ‘heads-up’ technologies making their way toward commercial use in the auto industry. All of the technologies described in the article involve projecting information onto a car’s windshield so that it appears to be ‘floating’ just ahead of the car. The companies designing these systems tout them as cutting-edge tools in the fight against distracted driving, but the article makes a strong case that for many drivers there is a high probability the heads-up technology will make things worse.

Accompanying the article is a screen shot from a video promoting one of the new companies. The still image shows the driver’s hands on the steering wheel as the car enters a sharp bend to the left. Projected into the driver’s line of sight are both an animated image of the car and the road, and a photo of the driver’s mother as he takes a phone call from her. The device allows the phone to be answered with a wave of the driver’s hand.

The idea that these devices will make driving safer boils down to the contention that by keeping drivers looking up and ahead they reduce the distraction of cellphones, in-dash navigation systems, and even the dashboard itself (since the devices can display things like speed and gas level). “The argument… boils down to a simple notion: Drivers are going to do it anyway, so why not minimize the riskiest kinds of multitasking, like looking down at the phone or handling it” according to the Times.

May 29, 2015

Once Again, Dangerous Truck Provisions Quietly Make Their Way Through Congress

by Matthew D. Kaplan

Last December I highlighted a stealthy move by the trucking industry to have its friends in Congress slip provisions into a stop-gap funding bill that were good for the industry but bad for Oregonians and the rest of America. Not content with that victory of profits over public safety the industry is now at it again, according to The New York Times.

An editorial published in the newspaper this week warned that “Republican lawmakers have attached a long industry wish list to an appropriations bill that will be voted on in the House in the coming weeks.” Last December’s measure suspended rules governing how much rest the drivers of large trucks need to get each week. The new measure, if it becomes law, will make it very difficult for President Obama or his successor to lift those ‘temporary’ rule suspensions.

Meanwhile, other parts of the bill “would allow trucks to carry longer trailers across the country, make it harder for the Department of Transportation to require drivers get more rest before they hit the road and forbid the department from raising the minimum insurance it requires trucks and buses to carry. The insurance levels have been in effect since 1985,” according to the paper.

May 24, 2015

Bicycle Safety Promoted by New Design Guide

by Matthew D. Kaplan

May is National Bike Month and to mark the occasion the US Transportation Department’s Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has released a new set of guidelines designed to promote bike safety in cities and towns across the country.

Formally titled the “Separated Bike Lane Planning and Design Guide” the 147-page document is seeks, according to the official FHWA blog, to outline “planning considerations and design options for this innovative bike facility. It provides information on one and two-way facilities, outlines different options for providing separation.” The report goes out of its way to address “midblock design considerations” – meaning situations in which vehicles need to be allowed to cut across the bike lane to gain curb access – as well as offering advice on how to handle intersections (something Portlanders, with our city’s mixed history of success with bike boxes, know is one of the more tricky elements of bike infrastructure design).

As the news release goes on to state: “The guide builds on our current policy to provide pedestrian and bicycle accommodations and on our support for design flexibility. It will inform the USDOT’s ‘Safer People, Safer Streets’ initiative as well as our efforts to improve access to opportunity for everyone.”

May 20, 2015

Portland Car Accident Raises a Series of Potential Legal Issues

by Matthew D. Kaplan

A single-vehicle Portland car accident that killed one person and injured two others spotlights both the dangers of reckless and drunk driving and its broader legal implications, even when a second car is not involved.

According to a report earlier this week in The Oregonian a 29 year old man who was riding in the back seat of an SUV died when he was thrown from the vehicle during “a fatal crash Sunday night off Northwest Skyline Boulevard.” The paper reports that “the SUV rolled down a steep embankment toward the 6600 block of Meridian Ridge Drive where it struck a house and caught fire. Neighbors were able to extinguish the fire and no one in the home was injured.” The newspaper, quoting police, says that the SUV’s 39-year-old driver remains in an area hospital in critical condition. The other passenger, a 30-year-old woman, “was treated for her injuries and released” from the hospital.

As the paper notes, “while the cause of the crash remains under investigation… (police) said it appears that alcohol and excessive speed were both contributing factors.”