People in Portland are driving cars where they don’t belong

What’s wrong with this picture?
(Photo by Howrad on Twitter)

Is it the full moon? Or maybe Halloween? For some reason there have been three incidents in the past three days where someone drove their car into a place usually reserved for other types of vehicles.

I know what you’re thinking: “People constantly drive their cars into places they don’t belong, like bike lanes, sidewalks, buildings.” That’s true. For some reason (distracted perhaps?) many of us who drive seem to be having trouble these days keeping our cars on the road where they should be.

But these three incidents I’m thinking of are different. They all feature people trying to drive their cars in places specifically set aside for either transit, walking or biking.

I figured I should share them all together here on the Front Page so we can get in front of any serious trend that might be forming. And maybe we can do something about it before it gets out of hand (like the cars-into-buildings thing).

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The first one we heard about was on Monday when someone managed to drive up onto the big curbs that protect the streetcar right-of-way on Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd (over I-84 south of the Convention Center):

Then on Tuesday there was a (uncomfirmed) report of someone trying to drive their car across the Tilikum Bridge:

And then today around noon someone driving a small SUV jumped the curb on the Hawthorne Bridge and got themselves right up on the biking and walking path:

Sheesh. Sometimes I wonder if we humans should really have ever been given the ability to operate these cumbersome personal motor vehicles.

— Jonathan Maus, (503) 706-8804 – jonathan@bikeportland.org