Motor Vehicle Accidents

August 29, 2015

Oregon Distracted Driving Case Leads to Criminal Conviction

The Oregonian this week reported on a guilty plea by a 24-year-old Gresham woman in an Oregon distracted driving case that encapsulates everything that is wrong with this growing problem.

According to the newspaper, the defendant admitted to “taking cellphone video of her child when she crashed into three teens outside their high school in January.” The three 14 and 15-year-old girls “sustained skull, pelvis and knee fractures” according to the paper, as well as “a broken nose, concussion and a lost tooth, and… a torn ACL and a concussion, court documents said.”

“Investigators found a 19-second clip on (the driver’s) phone that showed her hands off the wheel just before she plowed into the teens in the crosswalk, court documents said. She appeared to be holding the phone in her left hand and making gestures with her right hand at her son sitting in the back seat. Phone records show she had also been texting before the crash,” the Oregonian writes.

August 23, 2015

Distracted Driving Cited for Rise in Traffic Deaths

by Matthew D. Kaplan

A summer marked by low gas prices has led to a jump in the number of miles Americans are driving. Unfortunately, it also appears to be leading to a significant increase in traffic deaths, according to a recent Yahoo! News article.

“The National Safety Council reported this week that traffic deaths and serious injuries in the US are on a pace to rise for the first time in nearly a decade. If the trend for the first six months of this year continues, the NSC says traffic fatalities in the nation will exceed 40,000 for the first time since 2007 and deaths per 100 million vehicle miles traveled will also increase,” the news service reports. The key lies in the last part of that sentence – indicating that the number of on-road deaths is not merely a function of the greater number of miles being driven. The article notes that when compared to 2007 the number of mile Americans drive has increased by 3.4% but in the first six months of 2015 alone the number of traffic fatalities has jumped by 14%.

According to the article a number of factors contribute to this – such as higher speed limits – but one might also think that the steadily improving safety gear in modern cars and trucks would, at least to some extent, mitigate that. The big thing that has changed for the worse, according to the study, is the steady rise in distracted driving in general and cellphone use in particular despite laws and educational campaigns here in Oregon and elsewhere designed to curb the practice. From a legal perspective this is especially significant since it, in turn, means that an increasingly large number of drivers are placing themselves at risk of wrongful death charges in the event of an accident.

August 9, 2015

Bend-area Car Crashes Put US-97 in Spotlight

by Matthew D. Kaplan

As the Bend Bulletin notes in a recent article, two recent crashes near the Central Oregon city are drawing attention to safety issues on US-97. The newspaper notes that just on Tuesday of last week two Oregon car crashes took place on the same stretch of the road highlighting an area that “has long been considered perilous for its intersections and lack of median barriers.”

The paper reports that an elderly man visiting from the Midwest was involved in a head-on crash Tuesday morning when he “tried to turn north from a private driveway on the southbound side” of the road. No one suffered life-threatening injuries in that particular Oregon car crash, but later in the day a six-year-old girl was critically hurt and seven other people suffered less serious injuries “when a Redmond woman traveling southbound crossed into the northbound lanes” in the same area of Highway 97.

Both of these accidents involved cars, but the heavy presence of semi-trucks along this stretch of road is a reminder that even more serious accidents can and do take place when larger vehicles are involved.

July 28, 2015

Laws Shield Auto Industry from Accountability in Recall Cases

by Matthew D. Kaplan

US car makers may no longer dominate their industry they way they did a generation or two ago, but, as the New York Times recently detailed, their political clout in Washington remains formidable. As a result, the industry enjoys protections for unsafe and irresponsible behavior that other industries do not even when it results in auto accidents here in Oregon and elsewhere.

The newspaper reports that “legal loopholes that the auto industry helped create” are complicating efforts to hold both the auto makers and individuals working for them accountable for defective products they sold to millions of Americans over a period of years – products that led to many deaths and injuries.

“In one prominent example, lobbyists and trade groups blunted a law requiring car companies to notify regulators of certain safety defects within five working days, persuading Congress to water it down so that it carries only civil penalties, not criminal liability,” the paper notes. The article goes on to outline sensible proposals for accountability put forward over the last several decades by Republicans and Democrats alike, all of which have been eliminated or gutted in final legislation. It notes that “other industries, like pharmaceuticals and food” do not enjoy similar protections.

July 25, 2015

Portland Takes Lead in Gathering Data to Improve Cycling

by Matthew D. Kaplan

A report on the public radio program Marketplace this week focused on yet another way that our city is becoming a leader in promoting cycling. According to the report, a locally-based tech entrepreneur “has created an app called Ride, which asks cyclists to collect data as they cruise around Portland. The data will then help the city plan better cycling infrastructure, like signals, lanes, safer routes and where to avoid traffic.”

The report notes that around six percent of Portlanders use bikes to travel to and from work, a figure far above the national average of one percent. More dramatically, “that number leaps to 25 percent in the inner city.” Combine this with almost 350 miles of bike infrastructure in and around Portland and our city is uniquely well-equipped to help people improve both their health and the environment by replacing cars with bikes.

Unfortunately, Portland bicycle accidents involving traffic remain far more common than they should be. The hope is that by collecting a constant, and far more accurate, stream of data those accidents can be curbed – something that would benefit everyone.

July 19, 2015

Lobbyists Win and Safety Loses in Senate Vote

by Matthew D. Kaplan

A party line vote in the Senate Commerce, Science & Transportation Committee this week marked a big win for industry lobbyists and loss for consumers. According to a report in the Washington Post the approved legislation, which now heads to the full Senate, “brims with industry-sought provisions that would block, delay or roll back safety rules.”

The newspaper’s account focuses in particular on auto and rail safety. According to the Post the bill “would block a new Department of Transportation rule requiring that trains hauling crude oil are equipped with electronically-controlled brakes that affect all cars at the same time.” It would also delay rules requiring both freight and passenger trains to have “positive train control” safety systems, despite the fact that most observers believe the recent fatal Amtrak crash near Philadelphia could have been avoided if a PTC system had been in place on the train in question.

On our roads, the bill would roll back measures intended to curb car accidents here in Oregon and around the nation by increasing the size of the fines the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration can assess against auto makers. Those fines are currently capped at $35 million – a relatively small sum for any big global carmaker – at a time of record-shattering auto recalls. The NHTSA had sought the authority to levy fines of up to $300 million, believing that the higher number would give car companies more incentive to put safety first. The committee reduced that to $70 million.

July 13, 2015

Linn County Crash Raises Dram Shop Issues

by Matthew D. Kaplan

A Harrisburg car crash over the weekend left a 19-year-old man dead and has led to the arrest of the vehicle’s 20-year-old driver, according to The Oregonian. “Police said alcohol and drugs likely were contributing factors. There was evidence to show that the driver… was allegedly (had) over twice the legal limit of alcohol (in his bloodstream) and had used cocaine and marijuana,” the paper reports.

Citing local police, the paper reports that the driver failed to make his way around a curve on a road in Linn County causing his minivan to roll several times. Of the three passengers in the van one was ejected and thrown some 50 feet. He was pronounced dead at the scene. The driver and the other two passengers, both of whom are 18 years old, were treated for “non-life threatening” injuries at an area hospital.

After his release from the hospital the driver “was booked into the Linn County Jail on charges of Manslaughter I, Assault II and DUII,” the newspaper reports.

July 7, 2015

Bike Portland Announces Progress on Reducing Portland Bike Accidents

by Matthew D. Kaplan

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.