Is nowhere safe?
Our driving culture has devolved to such a low point in Portland that it often feels like there’s nowhere you can go without worrying about a car user having some sort of negative impact on your day — or your life.
Drivers are slamming into homes, driving on bike paths and in public parks, and even flying over embankments into our rivers.
On Sunday, a park in Northeast Portland that’s usually a place of community and calm for neighbors had its serenity pierced by a reckless driver. Someone plowed into the pocket park at NE 13th on the NE Holman neighborhood greenway. And to make it worse, the driver rammed over bollards that were fashioned to look like LEGO figures and installed shortly after the creation of the park in 2012.
I heard a bit more from a reader yesterday (in response to a post about it on social media). “This was quite a bad scene,” they shared. “It looked like they hit another vehicle and were running from that incident when this happened. After they hit the bollards they sat there and floored the gas trying to drive away for 5 more minutes until neighbors convinced them to shut off the car.”
If not for the two LEGO bollards in the middle of the path that runs through the park (see photos above), this driver would have likely created more havoc in the neighborhood. Thsoe bollards deserve a medal for their heroism!
I first heard about this from a reader who sent me a photo of the damaged bollard, and then sent me a link from the Woodlawn Nextdoor feed. When I read the post from a woman who saw the aftermath of the incident, my heart sank. Her words are troubling on so many levels (be sure to read to the end):
“In the Woodlawn neighborhood where my neighbor’s little kids play frequently and we generally think we are safe from cars. This van took out not only the first one but apparently was out of control and speeding fast enough to land/take out another one from the next pair as well, meaning it went over/toppling the first blockade and into the middle! JFC. Be careful out there. Teach your kids to listen for high speed cars, look toward it and safely distance themselves to stay clear. There have been too many of these lately.”
This is where we are. A mom telling other parents to teach kids to listen for reckless drivers even while playing in a park.
I’ve confirmed with a witness that the driver was arrested and taken into custody by the Portland Police Bureau.
Given that infrastructure and enforcement will only get us so far, we must do more to break the cycle of dysfunctional culture that breeds this type of driving behavior.
Thanks for reading.
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As Tom Flood put it, “We ask everyone outside of the car to be safe so that drivers can be dangerous.”
Time to lower the BikeLoud flags to half mast for the “bollards [who] deserve a medal for their heroism”
Well, don’t mourn, celebrate! Also, recruit more. It’s a proven design.
“LEGO bollards” kind of threw me, I pictured thousands of plastic bricks scattered on the asphalt.
This looks like the same mini van that drives really fast down Ainsworth. I really hope the city doesn’t try to have these diverters removed like it’s done for other ones because drivers hit them. If anything it should make the case for more reinforced bollards blocking off places cars shouldn’t be. What if a kid or family had been walking on that path?
Is there an app for that?
That’s the most surprising thing about this story to me! Drivers in Portland are seldom held accountable for the damage they cause.
They haven’t been held accountable yet, only arrested which is something but as we saw with clown in the pickup, you can do far worse than this and barely be held accountable.
I expect to hear that the driver was arrested for DUI. There’s no officer discretion for that and their behavior kind of fits the profile.
Closing a cut-through street to divert cars and make a park seemed like a “bold” and “new” concept back in 2012. Why hasn’t it caught on?! There are a few other, older mini-parks around, but we should be adding new pocket parks like this all over the city. There are SO MANY streets that only serve cut-through drivers. Diverting traffic with pocket parks and greenspaces would be such a win.
$$$ and capitulation to carbrains.
Sam Balto suggested something like this a while back.
https://bikeportland.org/2025/02/10/opinion-portland-needs-more-culdesacs-392786#comments
It ended up generating a lot more conversation and disagreement than I would have expected!
I’m sorry but this is so funny to me. Carbrain driving like a carbrain does a hit-and-run, tries to run through a bike path like a carbrain, then sits there trying to drive away while immobilized like a carbrain. At no point did it occur to them that they could flee from their crime spree on foot. I swear that some people would drive to the shitter in the morning if a road went there.
I have seen this in bigger campgrounds with shower houses. The whole family drives on down, instead of just walking over.
A guy across the street from us here at work, he’ll drive to the Plaid Pantry that is a 4 minute walk away to pick up some cold drinks. I’ve also had neighbors that I determined after watching them come and go so quickly were driving to the 7-11 around the corner from us. A less than 10 minute round trip walk and people will hop in the car without a second thought. Absolutely crazy to me.
I live in a five-plex, with six total residents. I walk everywhere to run errands, shop, etc; my max is about 3 miles each way. I am 78 year’s old; my neighbors ae generally in their early to mid-fifties, with one guy being 65. They never, I mean never go anywhere on foot or bike. I know, because we have big front windows looking at the parking area, and I see them come and go everywhere. The nearest big grocery store is about 10 minute walk from here. None of them exercise one bit, except one guy who rides his mountain bike once every couple of weeks. They are mostly blue collar folks, house painters, house cleaners, etc. I can say the same pretty accurately for my three neighbor houses. The American love of driving (or is it dislike of walking?) is rampant. Cycling errands around here are suicide, so walking is the best non-driving option. Even I, who ride 10,000 miles a year, never ride my bike in my neighborhood.
I don’t do loads of riding in my outer SE neighborhood. I will, but I don’t really love it. Both scenarios I mentioned don’t require crossing any streets, not big ones at least, these are *very mellow* walks. You mention the love of driving; I don’t think that’s the motivator here. To travel less than a quarter mile I don’t believe you have the time to sit there and think, “GODDAMN I love the open road!”. I think it’s a dislike of walking. Walking is my favorite way to get around and if I lived closer in still, man, I’d walk waaaay more than I get to now.
For the idiots wanting to remove diverters in order to address crime, just send them this article. These bollards did some great police work! With no high speed chase even.
Unlike traffic violence, the “crime” of ephemerally inconveniencing a wealthy SUV driver rarely goes unpunished in Portland.
Sounds like the bollards did exactly what they are supposed to do.
Why shouldn’t bollards be designed intentionally to inflict max damage on a car? Deterrence, anyone?
Our litigious country and how that’s wormed it’s way into best practices for civil engineering. Engineers can be held liable if they purposefully design infrastructure they know is more dangerous to drivers. Technically they can also be held liable for designing dangerous infrastructure for everyone else but drivers have more money behind them.
I saw the van after the incident. I’d be shocked if an insurance company didn’t consider it totaled.
As cool as those bollards are, it seems like beefier ones are needed. The driver shouldn’t have been able to make it past the first set.
I live near here and don’t think it was a bollard design problem, it was a bollard spacing issue. Guy hit it and then was able to wiggle around the side, the bollard was still standing. Albeit, at an angle.
I grew up in a state that required safety inspections as part of registration renewal. Can we make this a law in OR? Vehicles that fail are impounded. I see so many vehicles in Portland, yes, many driven by unhoused/addicted/mental health issue folks, but vehicles with (seriously) no brakes, blown transmissions, windshields so spidered that nobody could see out. Older minivans seem to be the vehicle of choice. There was a guy in our neighborhood who couldn’t stop and would “gun it” to get thru an intersection, even if he had a stop sign or signal, hoping that the other driver would give him “way.” He’d run his tires along a curb to slow or stop if needed. Where is our law enforcement regarding unsafe vehicles. I know that if my (2022, top of the line Japanese SUV) had a spidered windshield, I would get stopped and cited. Vision Zero seems to be Zero Vision.
Its funny such a nanny state that ultimately wants to control every aspect of your life allows pretty much anything when it comes to vehicles. And this being Portland chooses to have different rules for some folks.
I’m not sure that a badly cracked windshield on your new-looking vehicle would attract police attention more readily than the same damage on an older van.
I do think a pattern of enforcement like this happens, though, and it exposes weaknesses in the normal model of law enforcement. In short, what kind of risk of punishment could possibly deter someone who is psychotic, homeless, and addicted to drugs? Like, if your life is in that rough a state, how could the threat of a fine, losing your drivers license, or even brief incarceration lead to a change in behavior?
Examples show up in local discourse a ton in the last five years: homeowners get fined for cutting down dead, leaning trees, while law-breaking such as public urination, drug use, and property crimes go unpunished, and even un-investigated.
How can this be? Well, the homeowner is a sitting target (they have an address) and probably has financial resources (to fine).
Furthermore, for most of us normal people, the idea of being even briefly incarcerated is terrifying! Who would feed my cats!? Would I lose my job?
Most people have so much to lose, but lots of dangerous drivers are so down and out that the opportunity cost of antisocial behavior is very low. Not to mention the mental and emotional impairment of living that way.
I also grew up with safety inspections, and I realize how badly we need them here. It is crazy to me how many brake lights are out on older (and newer) cars here. Like, one of the most basic safety elements on a car isn’t working, and it’s no big deal. Brake light bulbs are cheap, getting rear-ended isn’t!
And once we start inspecting basic things like brake lights and headlights, let’s go ahead and eliminate all the dark limo tint on cars, and poorly-aimed, too-bright headlights. I think we could put a big dent in our traffic and congestion problems if we took all the unsafe and unregistered cars off the roads!
No, for two main reasons, one more cynical than the next. One, the low hanging fruit of reducing actual progress for the progressives, it can be construed as being regressive. Two, if you remove these vehicles that are operationally dangerous, or drive at a speed multiple standard deviations away from the flow of traffic, it would objectively make driving safer and easier. There is nothing leadership hates more than things that are regressive and things that improve the quality of life for anyone outside the lowest quintile, so no, this can’t be a law especially if it is somewhere else, unless its Vienna.
I would love for you to expound on this
Which part, that removing bad vehicles would make driving safer/better or that much of governance is focused on the lowest quintile of the population?
The latter mostly, but also the rationale for leaving dangerous cars on the road.