KPTV is reporting a hit-and-run that happened yesterday at the intersection of NE 21st and Columbia (map below) in Northeast Portland.
Here’s more from KPTV:
“A hit-and-run driver crashed into Dahren at about 10 a.m…
Linda Poppino, Dahren’s mother, said her son had been riding his bike through a crosswalk at the intersection when a driver in a mid-sized SUV slammed into Dahren’s front wheel.
…
Dahren suffered a broken nose and was missing four front teeth Monday. His face was also badly swollen. Despite her son’s injuries, Poppino said Dahren will recover.”
According to KPTV, Dahren describes the SUV as being a mid 1990s Ford Explorer that may have been green or teal and may have front-end damage. If you saw the crash or if you’ve seen the vehicle, please call the Portland Police at (503) 823-3333.
Here’s a map of the location:
View Larger Map
For those of you unfamiliar with this location, NE Columbia is five lanes (2 each way with a center turn lane) in that stretch and it’s an industrial use area.
My prayers are for a quick recovery, and an even quicker capture of the driver.
Get Well!
Ditto, K’Tesh. I hope this all gets resolved quickly and painlessly.
Be careful out there, everyone. I had to dive out of the way of a fast moving car while walking my bike across a crosswalk yesterday. I think this late-season rain is getting the best of people’s awareness and sensibilities.
Hit and run drivers are the lowest form of scum. I hope the person is caught and fully prosecuted.
According to the ch. 12 news last night, the family said it was no accident. The driver did seem to do this on purpose.
Hope you heal swiftly and thoroughly Dahren! Our thoughts are with you and your family.
Get well soon
Best wishes and get well soon, Dahren. I hope witnesses come forward and the driver is apprehended soon.
I wish the best for Dahren and his family and hope that this incident will put the spotlight on the dangers of crossing Columbia Blvd and other high speed industrial roads like it.
Please Portland, give us a safe way to cross Columbia Blvd!!!
I for one hope this isn’t resolved “as painlessly as possible” because the cyclist is already in pain. The driver should be made to feel some pain as well, at the very least in the wallet. I wouldn’t mind breaking his nose and a few teeth in the process either. The DA needs to file assault with a deadly against the scumbag driver (I was going to use a different term but decided against it, my Yiddish spelling is atrocious)
I wouldn’t mind breaking his nose and a few teeth in the process either.
Yep, nothing solves violence like more violence 🙁
I had to dodge two situations on my bike ride home yesterday. I think Amos is correct that the late rain is catching drivers unprepared for the rain dangers. I was traveling on a road with a bike lane and a car crossed the road (I think never seeing me) and I went to brake to avoid getting hit and my brakes did very little but slowed me just enough. Fortunately, I was ready to turn so I would have been next to the car instead of under or over it.
Watch out for not-so-attentive drivers!
Buzz and KPTV 12 – it is pretty hard to tell intent in that kind of situation. Regardless of intent, the driver did not stop and that is unacceptable.
I hope the person comes forward and too much intent laid upon this may discourage that.
If he is identified, I suggest the family subpeopa cell phone records.
What was with yesterday morning. Going into school at 7am was quiet, not a lot of traffic, but I had several aggressive actions thrown my way from drivers. Much more than normal. I’m sorry Dahren caught the worst of it and I hope the driver is caught soon. Any idea how old Dahren is?
Interesting that the linked KPTV write-up did not mention helmets…
Speedy recovery to Brandon. I hope there are consequences for this as-yet-unknown driver; we don’t need more drivers thinking they can get away with running people down.
http://www.kptv.com/news/19371910/detail.html
‘Dahren described the SUV as a mid 1990s Ford Explorer that may have been green or teal. It may have front-end damage.’
Keep an eye out and be safe out there.
Brandon Dahren got lucky. He was able to stumble a block down to his work, where his co-workers called police and ambulance and kept him awake.
He slammed his face (!!) into the passenger side of the SUV’s windshield.
Read that again, slowly. His face. Impacting, full force, a windshield.
It makes me so angry that people don’t seem to care that their actions can hurt other people. Where is the common decency here? Where is the humanity of the driver?
Brandon, I hope you get better soon. And that the SUV and driver are found and made to pay your medical bills, your lost wages, and to replace your bike and damaged possessions.
Let’s edit my post, eh:
His face was slammed into the passenger side of the SUV’s windshield.
(My phrasing made it sound like he did it on purpose! My apologies for bad writing!!)
Jonathan, you should have posted more of the salient details, I thought KPTV’s report was better than yours. Eep! What is the world coming to? 🙂
Kt, that’s why I linked to KPTV. I didn’t report anything.. i just re-hashed their story to inform the community about what happened. — Jonathan
Heal fast Brandon!
Someone help me out. I can’t find a single thing about this in the Oregonian.
Chad #8. +1 I need to cross Columbia to get from Marine drive to my home in NoPo. Wish there were a better way. Especially when I’m pulling my daughter.
get well man!
Jeff TB+daughter +1
It does seem like the city of Portland just plum forgot that people ride bikes to work north of Columbia Blvd.
Then again, the city might “think” it’s giving us safe passage across Columbia because if you look at the maps distributed by the Office of Transportation it shows bike lanes on NE 33rd as it crosses Lombard and Columbia when in reality you have a “pseudo” bike lane for 40 feet when you’re going north om 33rd which throws you in-between two lanes of 40 mph traffic exiting Columbia Blvd and if you dare go southbound on 33rd across Columbia and Lombard you will find a bike lane that ends right in a turn lane of Columbia Blvd which then narrows four feet before becoming the bridge that crosses Lombard.
21st Ave is the only light on Columbia between MLK and 42ave and is used by many cyclists to cross Columbia Blvd. As dangerous as this intersection has now proved to be, it is still, in my opinion, the safest way to cross Columbia.
Personal rant aside, Portland has done a great job for cyclists and I am still very proud to live and bike in this beautiful city.
Here’s to hoping Brandon will be back on a bike in Portland soon!
I really can’t figure out how you could smash into someone leaving their blood on your windshield and just drive away. Like the SUV driver hit a squirrel or something.
Hart, how many times have you been hit while riding your bike? How many were hit-and-run? I’m up to about 40 plus or minus with most being hit-and-run, fortunately I’m good at bike handling so I’ve only gone down about five times, and only one trip to the hospital. If I could I would strangle hit-and-run drivers with their own intestines, but I will (most likely) never get the chance. Hit-and-run is the same in my eyes as assault with a deadly weapon, and motor vehicles are orders of magnitude more deadly than guns against unarmored targets like cyclists and pedestrians. But even in enlightened OR we treat motor vehicle assaults like the victim is at fault for getting hit, instead of the driver’s fault for not controlling their vehicle.
I’ve been hit a few times and so far all of the drivers have stopped, but for a number of my friends that have experienced hit-and-runs with drivers. It’s shocking but for whatever reason people drive away. Hopefully the driver involved in this particular incident is found or contacts the victim. Until then we can only speculate as to why and keep an eye out.
I wish that when they catch these type of people that they would block them from getting drivers pliveledges again. There is no right to drive.
Toby (#13): “What was with yesterday morning. Going into school at 7am was quiet, not a lot of traffic, but I had several aggressive actions thrown my way from drivers. Much more than normal.”
We’re heading into a full moon. There’s been debate about the effects of this for years; in my experience I remember my dreams and see more crazy drivers around it (even notice myself getting angry more). I noticed more craziness (heard more horns, for instance) on my training ride today and thought to check, and sure enough it’s fairly full right now. My nursing, fireman, and police friends say they see more crazy stuff happen, and the one nasty right hook and confrontation I ever had on a bicycle was during a full moon. I’ve grown into the habit of being even more diligent of others and aware of my own level of risk tolerance (and anger levels) around these periods as a form of self preservation (not that you should ever really slack when it comes to paying attention on the road!).
Be safe and diligent out there everyone!
El Biciclero (#14): “Interesting that the linked KPTV write-up did not mention helmets…”
I noticed that! This is the first time I’ve seen an incident report without that detail. I personally think that’s a more respectful thing to someone injured so badly, as really, the helmet wouldn’t have stopped him front being assaulted. And the injuries shown in his picture don’t look like something a helmet would have helped mitigate. If he wasn’t wearing one, I’m glad the reporting didn’t open up the opportunity for ignorant people to place blame on him and insult him. Kudos KPTV on this one.
Brandon is a great dude a good friend of mine. He was in the military untill he was in heli repelling accident. He has allways been there for me when i needed him. Very awesome you can send him kind words!
maybe the driver was a member of:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?sid=c65b106b2d6fad809852ffb974f0a5db&gid=18650250038&ref=search
i hope he does get better soon.
I wonder if the war-state of this country is leading to more sociopathic behavior and a greater tolerance of violence everywhere in our community.
I’ve got the first $50 on a reward for information leading to the arrest of this driver.
$500 should track him down nicely, maybe even buy an article in the O.
Who’s gonna match me?
I will match you, bike militia. I’ve got the second $50 as a reward for information leading to the arrest of the driver.
Hello people.
Well, it’s been awhile since Brandon got hit…Strange thing I’m sure you’ve ignored it though.
You’ll notice, he’s been injured in the facial area..Strange, being hit by a car and LANDING on your body should produce some sort of “Road Rash” or at least “Bodily” injuries.
Strange, none of that was noted and I even called the Oregonian in regards to that article. “No bodily injuries were reported to the columinist”..>strange.
I think Brandon better realize he’s got too many people wondering if this wasn’t a faceplant into a pole.
Call me heartless, call me ignorant heck you can call me a jerk too. But frankly I think Brandon won’t admit he’s the fool for not wanting to admit he screwed himself up..
I’d just bet he voted “Democratic” this past election..
Oh yeah, you can flag this for removal, or not even allow it’s posting..So much for “Freedom of Speech” hey??
The impact with his face broke his fall and there was not a sufficient transfer of momentum from the truck to cause injury when he hit the road. I was an engineer a long time ago (I was going to build airplanes for everyone, the dreams you have when you’re young) besides having been in several wrecks both as a pedestrian and as a cyclist (I was hit twice in the same crosswalk in less than a year, not that it matters much in this discussion, both times by a driver trying to beat a light that had already turned red long ago enough for me to cross to the left turn lane) and I understand that a person can take a massive blow to the head without transferring much momentum to the rest of his body. I was hit by a vehicle doing nearly 65 MPH according to the police report and I had nearly no road rash aside from the impact damage where the truck hit my leg and head. This has me so upset that I can’t get my brain to function properly, that is one of the things that happens after getting hit in the head at that speed.