Articles Posted in Motor Vehicle Accidents

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A class action lawsuit filed in Salem is taking aim at a perhaps surprising target. According to area television station KDRV the lawsuit alleges that a major insurance company has been “fraudulently denying claims after car crashes.”

The target? USAA, a banking and insurance giant that deals exclusively with current and former members of the military and their families. Because of its focus on the military community USAA has long cultivated a customer-friendly, service-oriented image far removed from that of most commercial banks and insurance companies.

The Oregon suit, however, charges the company with “using medical reports by physicians to say treatment for injuries suffered in car crashes were not medically necessary. Plaintiffs allege in their suit that the insurance medical reviewers of their cases never even talked or consulted with them.” The station’s report said USAA “declined to comment on the lawsuit.”

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A recent announcement that insurance giant Allstate is buying the Esurance and Answer Financial brands from the smaller, less well-known, White Mountains Insurance Group raises several troubling questions.

According to an Associated Press article, Allstate expects to pay about $1 billion for the two brands. The acquisition will allow Allstate to broaden the offerings available under its corporate umbrella. AP cites an Allstate press release claiming “the deal will help it tap consumers who prefer certain brands along with consumers who want choices among insurance carriers.”

Leaving aside the dubious claim that one company’s marketing of its products under different names actually constitutes “choice” from a consumer’s perspective, customers might also want to consider what a company really has in mind when it makes acquisitions like this at below-market-value. Notably, White Mountain told the AP that the sale “will increase its book value by $80 per share.” Yet in trading after the deal was announced White Mountain’s stock rose by only $51 (about 15%) – indicating that the market thinks White Mountain should have gotten more money from Allstate for the deal to raise the company’s valuation as much as the White Mountain claims.

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Fox News used to run a regular segment called “stupid criminals.” If it were still on the air the subject of today’s Oregon drunk driving blog would definitely be a candidate.

According to The Oregonian, Aaron Arrell killed a woman in an Oregon fatal hit-and-run accident in March, and was apprehended in large part because he tried to cover his tracks by having his wife phone police to report their van – the vehicle involved in the accident – stolen. “Had they not called, it may have gone unsolved,” the paper quotes a Multnomah County prosecutor saying.

When police caught up with Arrell – based largely on the description of the vehicle that his wife had given them – he tested for blood alcohol at almost twice the legal limit, according to the paper. It also emerged that he was driving on a suspended license, and had been cited twice previously for doing so in the weeks prior to the Portland drunk driving fatality.

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Legislators in Salem hope to close what has emerged as a significant loophole in Oregon’s year-and-a-half-old distracted driving law. As almost everyone knows by now, talking on a cellphone while behind the wheel is illegal in Oregon unless one is using a hands-free device.

As The Oregonian details, however, many judges are taking a broader view of one particular provision of the 2009 law than its authors intended. The Oregon distracted driving law contains an exception “allowing drivers to go on talking on their handheld cellphone – as long as they are driving for work and ‘acting in the scope’ of their employment,” the paper notes.

The legislators who wrote the law tell The Oregonian their idea was “to make exceptions for police, firefighters and others who truly need to make calls on the move.” As it turns out, however, courts have given that phrase a much wider interpretation. In many places, its effect has been to give a free pass to anyone who simply tells the judge they were making a work-related call. As a consequence, some police officers tell the paper they have stopped even issuing distracted driving citations to anyone who claims when pulled over to have been on the phone for work.

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After a year marked by bad news – fatal crashes; official reports indicating that safety needs to be improved – it is refreshing to encounter a story about Tri-Met that makes you feel good.

According to The Oregonian, a Tri-Met train driver’s quick thinking saved the life of a woman who had fallen onto the tracks last week. What could have turned into a disastrous Portland transportation accident was averted, the paper reports, mainly because train driver Arthur Beardsley “knew the Willow Creek stop in Hillsboro can be ‘a scary area.’” As a result, he was already approaching with caution when a woman fainted in front of his oncoming train.

Trains, as the article notes, can take a long time to stop. Large freight trains can easily travel over a mile after the brakes are applied before they begin to lose momentum. Even light rail cars, like the trains commuters use here in the Portland area, normally take about 600 feet to stop, according to The Oregonian. In this case it was only Beardsley’s unusually slow approach to Willow Creek that averted an otherwise certain tragedy.

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A Clatsop County court has convicted a 45-year old Portland man in a case stemming from a fatal drunk driving car crash last year, according to The Oregonian.

The case of Ken Middleton’s Portland fatal car crash is particularly shocking not only because of the sheer amount of alcohol he consumed in the hours leading up to the accident, but also because he got behind the wheel so completely intoxicated despite having his own 13-year-old daughter riding with him. The Daily Astorian reported that Middleton, at his trial, “admitted he had consumed at least 12 beers that day.” His daughter, mercifully, “suffered only minor injuries,” according to The Oregonian.

In addition to Oregon drunk driving Middleton was convicted of manslaughter, second-degree assault and three counts of reckless endangering, The Oregonian reports. The manslaughter charge stems from the death of Andrew Church, a motorcyclist whom Middleton struck head on when he drifted over the centerline as he and his daughter drove along US-30 in Astoria last May.

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Police are investigating the circumstances of an Oregon car crash involving two pick-up trucks and a semi-trailer that left one of the pick-up drivers dead, according to The Oregonian.

The accident took place last week in Dallas, west of Salem. According to the newspaper, a pick-up driven by a 58-year-old Grand Ronde man drifted across the centerline mid-evening on Oregon Route 22. The pick-up and semi-trailer collided, killing the pick-up’s driver. According to the Salem Statesman-Journal, another pick-up following behind the big rig was unable to take evasive action and rear-ended the larger truck.

The driver of the semi was injured in the Central Oregon truck accident and was taken to a local hospital. His injuries were not reported to be serious. The driver of the second pick-up was uninjured, the paper reported. Oregon 22 was closed for several hours while the Oregon State Patrol and local police launched their investigations of the accident.

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A story from Northern California offers a vivid reminder for us here in Oregon that drunk driving can lead to all kinds of trouble above and beyond car crashes. According to a recent account in the Red Bluff Daily News, a man is now in prison after what appears to have been an alcohol-fueled road rage incident on Interstate 5.

The paper reports that the alleged incident unfolded after a 21-year-old driver passed a car on the right. That vehicle was driven by 66-year-old Warren Hawkins. The younger driver reportedly went around Hawkins after driving behind him for some time in the fast lane where Hawkins was reportedly traveling several miles per hour below the speed limit.

Hawkins allegedly responded by first pulling alongside the younger man “yelling and making hand gestures,” and then attempting to side-swipe him twice. He then moved back behind the 21-year-old’s vehicle so that he could ram it – again, twice. The paper reports that Hawkins next followed his alleged victim when he exited the interstate, making a u-turn in an intersection and then coming “back the wrong way… before swerving left to complete a circle” around the younger man. The out-of-control driver was reportedly shouting “death threats out an open window” when police arrived on the scene.

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A trial now underway in Washington is raising serious questions about railway safety. According to TV station KGW, the Longview, Washington trial focuses not only on safety policies at the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway Company, but on how carefully those policies are enforced.

The Washington rail crash trial stems from “a collision between a train and a shuttle van in which three people were killed and a forth was critically injured,” the station reports. At issue is a BNSF policy of parking all stationary trains at least 250 feet from a rail crossing. The victims in this particular case died after being struck by a train that apparently could not see their van as it crossed the tracks because another train was parked only 50 feet from the crossing, blocking the engineer’s view.

One complication facing the victims’ families, however, is the fact that the incident took place on the railway company’s property, where laws designed to protect the public at public crossings do not have effect. Private crossings, such as those on company property, have “no requirements for lights or a crossing arm,” the paper reports.

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A Portland man faces the serious charge of second-degree assault after an alleged attack on a Portland bike rider that resulted in an Oregon bicycle accident, according to The Oregonian.

The incident took place early Tuesday morning as Joe Santos, a Portland police sergeant, was riding his bike to work along Northwest Cornell Road. Santos told investigating officers after the incident that an SUV nearly hit him, then, inexplicably, “about a block later, the driver stopped so suddenly that Santos had to veer into oncoming traffic.” Santos “slapped” the SUV to try to alert it to his presence, and was rewarded with the car abruptly stopping, going into reverse and trying to hit him. When Santos tried go grab his bike and flee to the safety of the sidewalk the SUV allegedly went after him yet again – hitting the bike, but missing the rider.

Fortunately Santos, though shaken, was able to get the license plate of the SUV. Later that day police took a suspect into custody, the newspaper reports, citing police sources.

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