Articles Posted in Motor Vehicle Accidents

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From Maine this weekend comes a strange and tragic story that should be a reminder for all Oregonians of the importance of safe driving. Police in Wells, a town in southern Maine, say a man died Saturday as a result of an unusual multi-car auto accident. What makes this tragedy stand out is the fact that the victim of this multi-car fatal accident was not in either of the vehicles involved in the crash: he died while standing on his lawn presiding over a yard sale – and the yard sale itself was what touched off the events leading to his death.

For Oregonians this tragic story offers several reminders: the importance of safe driving, of course; but also the fact that a Portland fatal car crash can happen anytime, anywhere and that those most severely impacted by an Oregon car crash need not be drivers or passengers in cars and trucks involved in a Portland, Medford, Eugene or Salem auto accident.

According to television station WCSH, the tragedy began early Saturday morning when a driver traveling along a road in Maine spotted a yard sale and decided to make a U-turn so that he could get a closer look. As he did so, “another truck hauling a 30-foot camper-trailer” struck his vehicle. The Truck-camper combo jackknifed onto the lawn where the yard sale was going on, killing the home’s owner and injuring his mother-in-law. The driver of the pick-up that caused the accident was also hospitalized with serious injuries, while the four people in the truck-camper suffered only minor injuries, the station reports.

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Late last month I summarized the key findings of a New York Times article on the latest gadgets available to Oregon drivers and designed to combat distracted driving. Products like this have become increasingly important since the Oregon distracted driving law went into effect in January. As a Portland distracted driving attorney I’ve worked hard to keep on top of both the technological and legal sides of this fast-developing area of the law.

As I noted last month, one barrier to effective high-tech solutions combating Portland distracted driving is what has become known as the “passenger problem”: if your anti-distracted driving app works mainly by disabling all or part of your phone while the car is in motion (as determined by the phone’s GPS), how does that effect someone who is riding in the car but is not behind the wheel? Cutting down on Portland injury car crashes linked to distracted driving is a priority for everyone – but it is also a reality of modern life that not everyone making calls or texting from a moving car is behind the wheel.

My earlier post noted that different products deal with this issue in different ways. I mentioned that one product, Zoomsafer, allowed users to bypass its call blocking functions by completing a timed puzzle – presumably one too difficult to attempt while driving. Shortly after publishing that blog, however, I received an email from ZoomSafer’s Marketing Manager, Eleanor Jones, which reads, in part:

“Users cannot bypass ZoomSafer’s software by successfully completing a timed puzzle. We believe that such a mechanism is incredibly dangerous as it encourages drivers determined to flout the block to completely disregard the road in order to regain access to their phones’ texting functions.”
The system, she writes, does have a “passenger mode” which, in effect, puts “the automatic speed detection on ‘snooze’.” This, frankly, is good news, if only because lack of some route around the passenger problem threatens to emerge as a major barrier to adoption of anti-distracted driving devices in Oregon and elsewhere around the country. We are probably still a year or so away from having good statistical data on the new Oregon distracted driving ban and its effectiveness, but high tech solutions designed to address user’s concerns while keeping them safe seem like a very good start.

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As recently as last week officials at TriMet, metro Portland’s transit company, dismissed as impractical suggestions that the city should stop allowing busses to make left-hand turns. Criticism of the practice emerged in the wake of an April Portland fatal bus accident that left two people dead and three others injured after they were struck by a bus turning left through a crosswalk. The bus had a green light at the time, but the pedestrians also had a ‘walk’ signal, according to local media reports.

Since the accident it has emerged that federal safety data indicate that eliminating left turns from bus routes can have a significant effect on safety, as can other measures such as requiring drivers to honk their horns. An article in The Oregonian last week listed several cities in different parts of the country that have taken the study’s recommendations to heart, but noted that Portland is not among them. As recently as a few days ago Portland transit officials dismissed the idea of instituting similar changes here, claiming our city’s street grid makes such measures impractical.

Late last week, however, TriMet reversed itself. On Friday the authority announced that following last month’s Oregon bus injury crash changes are being made to routes 12, 17 and 44. According to an article in The Oregonian, “more operation, training and route changes are expected as part of a sweeping safety review.” The announcement follows the paper’s revelation that TriMet recently settled a Portland personal injury lawsuit with a woman who lost her leg in 2008 when she was struck by a bus making a left turn.

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Last month, two people died and three others were injured in a Portland fatal bus accident when they were hit by a Tri-Met bus making a left-hand turn. Now, an investigation by The Oregonian demonstrates that data on the problem of busses and left-turn accidents has existed for some time, and that measures implemented in other cities could prevent Oregon bus accidents like the one that took place in late April.

The newspaper cites a federal study showing “that bus-pedestrian collisions are more than twice as likely to happen during left turns.” It notes that other cities, including Des Moines, Iowa and Cleveland, Ohio, instituted relatively simple procedures following the study’s release in an effort to improve safety. In both cities, for example, bus drivers are forbidden to make left-hand turns and are required to honk their horns before turning right. The article notes that six cities, including Cleveland and Richmond, Virginia, are equipping vehicles with “pedestrian warning systems”. In Richmond, for example, a loud recorded voice announces “Caution: bus turning” whenever the vehicle turns out of an intersection.

The newspaper quotes a Tri-Met spokeswoman, however, saying that a ‘no left turns’ policy for preventing Oregon bus accidents is not feasible in downtown Portland because of the way the city’s streets are laid out. The spokeswoman also dismissed the idea of a policy to require honking as busses turn on the grounds that it would make drivers rely on the horn “instead of their awareness of pedestrians.”

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Oregon State Police are reportedly still investigating the circumstances of a three-car Oregon crash that took the life of a 72 year old woman from Roseburg last week. According to Eugene TV station KMTR, the Oregon fatal traffic accident took place near the intersection of Highway 42 and Carnes Road in the small town of Green, just west of I-5 between Medford and Eugene.

The Oregonian reports that 72-year old Nobu Cress was severely injured when her car was struck by a vehicle that ran a red light as she was turning left through the intersection. The vehicle that struck Cress also hit another car though the driver of that vehicle suffered only minor injuries. Cress was airlifted to a Portland area hospital, but later died, the newspaper reports. The driver of the car that struck her was treated at a hospital in Roseburg, closer to the accident site.

According to KMTR, “troopers have yet to release any information on what caused the crash, like a mechanical problem, medical problem or distraction,” though they did say that there is little evidence that the driver who ran the red light applied her brakes.

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Two months ago I wrote about “Textecution”, a smartphone application available for phones using Google’s Android operating system. At the time I noted that the application’s approach – using a phone’s GPS capabilities to determine whether the user is in a moving vehicle and, if so, to turn off some or all of a handset’s functions – seemed to be the wave of the future.

Sure enough, barely eight weeks later, New York Times technology columnist David Pogue has published a detailed review of four similar applications, all of which seek to address the growing problem of distracted driving. Textecution was not among the applications reviewed this week by Pogue. All of the ones he did look at, however, take a similar approach.

As Pogue notes, iZup, tXtBlocker, CellSafety and ZoomSafer approach the problem of Oregon distracted driving in differing ways but seem to be aimed at the same market: parents of teenagers (or perhaps to bosses who fear that employees on the phone while using the company vehicle will cause an Oregon car accident leading to a lawsuit). Aside from ZoomSafer, all of the applications reviewed require a monthly subscription fee. Purchase prices range from free (for iZup, though, again, there is a monthly fee) to $25.

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A Portland bus accident late Saturday night left two young women dead and three other people injured – one critically – after the group was struck by a bus. According to The Oregonian, police are still working to reconstruct the details of the Oregon fatal pedestrian vehicle crash. The incident took place in downtown Portland as the group of pedestrians left a local comedy club.

According to the paper, the accident occurred at the intersection of Northwest Broadway and Glisan Street. “The bus was westbound on Glisan as it turned left onto southbound Broadway and struck the westbound pedestrians,” the paper reported. The five victims, including a newlywed couple and a brother and sister, all knew one another and were traveling together. According to police, the bus had a green light at the time of the accident and the pedestrians had a walk signal. The bus was out of service at the time and was not carrying passengers.

The Oregonian quoted police saying that neither speed nor alcohol initially appears to be a factor in the accident.

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About 50 people, including Portland’s mayor, gathered last week to mark the unveiling of a unique spot: a shrine dedicated to Portland bicyclists by St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, along with the introduction by the church of a formal ‘bicycle liturgy’, according to a recent article in The Oregonian.

Central to the shrine is a ‘ghost bike’ covered in flowers and dedicated to the memory of a young Portland cyclist who was struck by a car and died in an Oregon bicycle accident in 2007. Mayor Sam Adams told those attending the service that “out of the great tragedy of (Tracey) Sparlings death emerged the city’s bike boxes, designed to prevent more right-hook turns like the one that killed” her, the newspaper reported. According to the church publication Episcopal Life, Sparlings was struck and killed by a cement truck which failed to see her while turning. The driver of the truck was not prosecuted.

The event was a reminder that even in Portland – often regarded as one of the most bike-friendly cities in the country – riders often find themselves endangered by drivers who are not keeping an eye out for cyclists.

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Four members of a Canadian family were injured in a serious Oregon truck accident last week when what police describe as a “large truck” crossed the median on I-5 near Eugene and collided with an oncoming car, according to a report by local TV station KMTR.

According to the Eugene Register-Guard, the truck, which police describe as “rental style”, was headed south on I-5 at the time of the accident. The truck’s 73-year old driver reportedly strayed across the interstate’s grassy median before colliding with the Canadian family’s northbound pick-up truck. All four family members were taken to area hospitals. None of their injuries are thought to be life-threatening. The southbound truck’s driver was more seriously injured. According to the Register-Guard she was airlifted to hospital, after being pulled from her vehicle by fire department personnel.

Eugene injury accidents such as this can be difficult and costly affairs for the victims and their extended families. Bills for medical treatment, rehabilitative services and even counseling can flood in at a time when accident victims, or loved ones forced to leave work to care for them, are further burdened with emotional distress and the possible loss of wages or salaries.

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With Oregon distracted driving on the minds of many motorists as the state’s new ban on the use of hand-held cellphones and texting by drivers takes effect, a court case in California last week became the latest important legal decision to remind everyone how serious an issue this is.

According to the Associated Press, a 42 year old California man has been sentenced to four years in prison following a car accident in which he struck and killed a pedestrian. Martin Kuehl was texting as he drove through the southern California city of Newport Beach in August 2008. According to the AP, “prosecutors argued that he had an unobstructed view of the crosswalk” where he struck and killed the pedestrian, but “failed to slow down or break in any way.”

Interestingly, the accident took place one month before California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed legislation banning texting behind the wheel throughout the state. That fact is an important reminder that the consequences of Portland distracted driving can go far beyond those directly related to the Oregon distracted driving law.

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