Motor Vehicle Accidents

March 5, 2019

Fatal Oregon Bike Accident Highlights Criminal v Civil Distinctions

The Associated Press recently reported on the sentencing of a woman in Deschutes County to more than 12 years in prison following a December 2017 incident in which she struck and killed a 38-year-old Bend woman who was riding a bike.

The news agency, citing local TV station KTVZ, quotes the Deschutes County Circuit Judge overseeing the trial calling it “the most extreme reckless endangerment case:” he had ever seen. The defendant was convicted “for hitting and killing a cyclist while driving under the influence (of)… nearly a dozen prescription drugs, including her dog’s anxiety pills, at the time of the crash,” the AP reports. Clearly there is a case to be made for punitive damages here.

Though the criminal trial is now over, the question of civil damages is one that may still need to be addressed. Obviously there is a strong case to be made for a wrongful death lawsuit on behalf of the victim’s estate. It is also worth noting that, according to media reports, the woman was “riding with two friends” on a road east of Bend at the time of the accident. The survivors, even if they were not physically injured, may have a strong case to make for damages based on the mental distress they have suffered in the wake of their friend’s death. All of these parties – the decedent’s beneficiaries as well as the other two people impacted by the accident – have a strong claim to punitive damages.

February 12, 2019

Fatal Washington I-5 Crash Focuses Attention on Insurance Issues

by Matthew D. Kaplan

Following up on my recent blog about the dangers in Oregon’s system of uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage an incident on Interstate-5 near Olympia, Washington is bringing similar issues into focus north of the Columbia River.

According to The Olympian an arraignment is scheduled to take place next week for a man “whose vehicle crashed into a 16-year-old Oregon girl” killing her and injuring both the driver himself and two other people. The 40-year-old man from Poulsbo, Washington faces vehicular homicide charges “as well as four counts of reckless endangerment.”

The newspaper reports that the accident took place when one car, which multiple witnesses described as driving erratically, hit two other cars that were stopped in a breakdown lane and waiting for assistance. The 16-year-old who had been driving one of those cars was killed in the accident and her mother was seriously injured. Two other people – the girl’s uncle and brother – were not injured. Also injured was the driver of the erratic car along with his 8-year-old daughter.

January 31, 2019

‘Uninsured Motorist’ Coverage Often is Not Enough

by Matthew D. Kaplan

An article published a few days ago in The Oregonian offers a good opportunity for us to examine the problems with Oregon’s systems for dealing with uninsured and underinsured motorists.

The newspaper reports that “a 29-year-old driver who lost control of his car and hit several parked vehicles, causing traumatic injuries to one of his passengers” fled the scene of the accident on foot and was arrested several days later. The accident took place on 92^ndAvenue near the intersection with Powell Boulevard in Southeast Portland. The newspaper quotes police saying a 34-year-old woman was hospitalized with life threatening injuries after the incident. The woman’s fiancé was also injured.

The driver “is accused of two counts of felony failure to perform duties of a driver to injured persons” according to The Oregonian. We do not know for certain, but the driver’s decision to flee strongly implies that he was either uninsured or underinsured. As most readers of this blog are probably aware, Oregon and Washington both require every driver to purchase insurance with a minimum of $25,000 in liability coverage. Those insurance policies almost always provide coverage against being hit by an uninsured and underinsured motorist for the same $25,000.

January 16, 2019

Portland Moves to Make Biking Safer on Greeley Avenue

by Matthew D. Kaplan

In an exciting development for area cyclists, The Oregonian reports that Portland’s city council has “blessed a plan to build a protected two-way bike path on North Greeley Avenue between Interstate 5 and Swan Island.” The $1.9 million project will involve repaving Greeley as part of the construction process. If everything goes according to plan the path will be open in the fall of 2019.

The path will be a significant addition to Portland’s cycling infrastructure, creating a protected cycleway to replace what the newspaper says “might be one of the most dangerous bike lanes in Portland.” I have written in the past about the dangers of cycling on North Greeley. A video on The Oregonian’s website aptly illustrates what a hair-raising experience a ride along this road currently is. Traffic speeds past on a road where the existing shoulder is narrow and in poor condition. The paper notes that “two bicyclists have been seriously injured on the stretch of road between 2007 and 2016.”

Oregon already has strict laws designed to protect cyclists. ORS 811.050 designates failure to yield to a cyclist in a bike lane as a Class B traffic violation (meaning it incurs a fine of up to $1000). That is important to keep in mind on North Greeley where even after the new bike path is constructed drivers headed south will have to cross the bike lane as they enter the I-5 onramp.

December 28, 2018

Clackamas County DUII Accident Kills One, Highlights Drunk Driving Dangers as New Year’s Eve Approaches

by Matthew D. Kaplan

A 23-year-old Woodburn woman was arrested and charged with a series of offenses after a single-car accident in Clackamas County. According to The Oregonian the accident took place a few days before Christmas on Highway 211 near South Palmer Road. The woman “is accused of second-degree manslaughter, fourth-degree assault, driving under the influence of intoxicants, reckless driving and recklessly endangering another stemming from a single-car crash that killed one of her three passengers.”

The newspaper reports that the vehicle “veered off the road and struck a tree.” One of the passengers, a 26-year-old Woodburn man, died at the scene of the accident. The driver and the other two passengers were all taken to OHSU hospital, where the driver was later arrested.

New Year’s Eve is next Monday. That means that for many people one of the most dangerous nights of the year to be out on the roads will also be part of an extra-long holiday weekend. As is always the case over New Year’s there will be many options involving both public transport and taxi/ride share systems to help people get home safely. A number of these can be found by clicking the KATU-TV link below.

December 3, 2018

Portland Faces Questions as Biketown Gets a New Operator

by Matthew D. Kaplan

Bike share programs have become popular across the country, and it is no surprise that famously bike-friendly Portland is part of the trend. That’s why the news that Motivate, the company that runs Biketown (and many other bike share programs nationwide), has a new owner should be of interest to anyone who cares about Portland as a cycling community.

The buyer is Lyft, a company best known for its car-hailing app. The Oregonian quotes a company statement promising “to help take bike share to the next level” with more bikes and more docking stations. With a single company running the bike share programs in cities across the country there is also the potential for rentals to become nearly seamless nationwide.

But Lyft’s emergence as a major player in bike share also raises questions. Let’s start with maintenance. When you return a rental car it is checked before being sent back out with another customer. When you roll a share bike into a docking station it usually just sits there until someone else checks it out or until the bike share operator moves it to a different location (regular and systematic redistribution of the bikes is a key element of any successful share program). Clearly no one is going to select a bike from the docking station if it has serious, visible damage. But there have always been legal questions about how bike share companies should deal with more subtle mechanical problems. Gears, the chain and the brakes can all be damaged in ways not immediately visible to someone who knows little about bike maintenance. It is worth asking what steps are being taken to guarantee a safe ride for bike share customers.

November 19, 2018

New Car Seat Guidelines Should Draw Attention of Oregon and Washington Parents

by Matthew D. Kaplan

A recent announcement from the American Academy of Pediatrics merits the attention of every parent here in the Pacific Northwest. As reported in the magazine Contemporary Pediatrics the AAP “has changed the age recommendations regarding rear-facing car seats, advising that children remain rear-facing for as long as possible.”

As the article notes, the long-standing guidance for new parents has been to place babies in rear-facing car seats until the age of two. New research, however, showed that “at all agers examined, rear-facing car seat use was associated with a decreased risk for injury; the number overall were insufficient to confidently recommend a specific age to transition. Consequently, the policy, specifically recommending age 2 years, needed to be changed.”

The article quotes an Oregon scientist – Benjamin Hoffman, a senior professor and administrator at the Oregon Health and Science University in Portland – saying: “We knew that if our policy said rear-facing until age 2 and we could not back up specifically… we needed to change our guidance to reflect the best available evidence.”

November 6, 2018

Oregon School Safety Shouldn’t Require This Sort of Thing

by Matthew D. Kaplan

A recent Oregonian article outlined a North Portland accident involving a 13-year-old girl that could easily have been prevented if local officials had paid more attention to the concerns of Portland parents. As the newspaper reports, the girl was struck by a car while crossing at the intersection of North Russell Street and Flint Avenue. “The girl suffered a leg injury and was taken to a hospital,” the paper reports.

What makes this story stand out is the fact that the unmarked crosswalk near Harriet Tubman Middle School has been identified by both Portland Bureau of Transportation officials and Portland school officials as a potential trouble spot – one that ought to have a marked crosswalk. The Oregonian reports local transportation officials had visited this very intersection only “a couple of weeks” before the accident. The paper quotes a spokesman for the Bureau of Transportation saying: “We believe it’s a good place for a marked crosswalk.”

As the newspaper notes, “in Oregon, every intersection is legally a crosswalk, even if there’s no paint on the asphalt.” That means the girl was crossing the street legally – and doing so in a place that had been flagged by area parents on several occasions since the Tubman school’s recent reopening.

October 31, 2018

Bend Cyclist’s Death Focuses Attention on Bike Lanes

by Matthew D. Kaplan

A court hearing in Bend earlier this month is bringing long overdue attention to some of the legal issues surrounding accidents and bike lanes. The Deschutes County proceeding focused on the death last November of a 31-year-old cyclist who was “hit and killed in an intersection by a FedEx truck,” according to a report in The Oregonian.

Prosecutors described bike lanes as the center of the case. “This is cultural,” the newspaper quotes the county prosecutor saying. “Many people just don’t think of them as lanes.”

According to the newspaper, the cyclist sped down a hill and through an intersection, colliding with the side of a FedEx semi-truck as it was making a right-turn from NW Wall Street onto NW Olney Avenue in Bend. The rider “was also traveling north on Wall, in a bike lane alongside the travel lane. (He) intended to go through the intersection and not turn right onto Olney Avenue,” according to The Oregonian.

October 1, 2018

New Oregon Law Places Greater Responsibility on Hit-and-Run Drivers

by Matthew D. Kaplan

Sometimes it takes a tragedy to push the legal system to close a loophole. In the wake of a 2013 accident that left two little girls dead, Governor Kate Brown has done just that: signing a new law Thursday that clarifies the legal obligations of hit-and-run drivers.

“Anna and Abigail’s Law” is named in honor of 6 and 11-year old sisters from Forest Grove “who were struck as they played in a leaf pile” in 2013, according to an article in The Oregonian. It requires “drivers who suspect that they may have caused personal or property damage after a collision to report it to police.”

“Lawmakers pursued the change after the woman connected with felony hit-and-run in connection to the case… had her three-year probation overturned by the Oregon Court of Appeals,” according to the newspaper. At the time, Oregon law did not “require a driver to return to the scene of an accident if he or she learned someone was injured or killed after the fact. In granting (the) appeal the court also ruled there wasn’t enough evidence to establish without a reasonable doubt that (the driver) had reason to believe anyone was hurt after she ran over the leaf pile.”