Heading down NW Cornell Rd toward Skyline Blvd.
(Photos: Martin Stabler)

This story was written by Martin Stabler

Dog and bike collide. Aaron Edge doesn’t know if the dog is OK; he is definitely not OK. It was a bad bike crash.
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View of police flares from crash investigation at SE 148th and Division.
(Photo: Sarah Iannarone)

One person was killed and another person sustained life-threatening injuries in two separate crashes this weekend. Both of them happened about one mile apart in southeast Portland.

On Saturday evening around 5:40, Portland police responded to a collision near the intersection of SE 148th and Division. They discovered that a bicycle rider had been hit by a driver and was lying on the ground. “Based on preliminary information,” read their statement, “officers believe the motorist and bicyclist were both traveling south on Southeast 148th Avenue when the bicyclist was struck by the vehicle.”

The man was believed to have “serious life threatening injuries.”

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Looking southwest at the intersection of Northeast Cully and Killingsworth.
(Photos: J. Maus/BikePortland)

51-year-old northeast Portland resident Alberto Canche-Mukel remains in the hospital with serious injuries after a traffic collision late last night.
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What happened this morning. Be thankful you weren’t in that car, in that daycare or under that power pole.
(Images: Portland Police, Tigard Police)

The amount of daily destruction and disruption in our region caused by peoples’ inability to control their cars and trucks is staggering.

Between 2:00 am and 6:00 am this morning there were two incidents that illustrate what has become an all too common occurrence on our roads.

Around 2:00 am on Hall Boulevard in Tigard (adjacent to the skatepark and Burnham Street) a man who had been drinking while driving failed to maintain control of his van and he struck a large power pole. According to the Tigard Police Department, the power pole fell over and a woman riding a bicycle became entangled in the wires. She sustained life-threatening injuries and burns and was taken via ambulance to the hospital.
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Portland traffic fatalities, 1996-2015

The past few weeks have been especially bad in terms of road fatalities in Portland. Within nine days between July 30th and August 8th we had four fatalities, which prompted me to run the numbers- so by the time you’re reading this, they have gone up.

For the year to date as of August 9, we’ve had 28 fatalities. I took PBOT’s fatality data and crunched some numbers:
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It’s windy out there. Very windy.

This afternoon there were reports of trees and branches falling all over the region. Before leaving the office for the day, Jonathan posted the following tweet:

Then, what he’d posted in jest actually happened to an unlucky woman riding downtown.

According to a Portland Police Bureau report, a woman who was biking in downtown Portland survived a tree falling on her in the bike lane. It happened just after 4 p.m., according to police. She received “traumatic but not life-threatening injuries.”

Check out a photo of the tree and the full PPB press release below the jump…
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Mike Cooley, shown here ready to head out on his
daily bike commute, may never walk again.
The man who drove his truck into him
is still on the loose.
(Photos courtesy Lisa Cooley)

Update, July 5: The Cooleys have set up a fund for those wishing to support Mike’s recovery. See below for details.

Two weeks after a white Ford pickup reportedly hit him from behind at 60 mph, postal driver Mike Cooley is still in critical condition at Legacy Emanuel Hospital and the person whose actions nearly killed him is still at large.

The crash took place June 15th on North Interstate Avenue near Greeley. Police have distributed photos of the truck that may have hit Cooley, with little results so far.

“There’s only been one tip, and it was completely bogus,” said Cooley’s wife, Lori Cooley, in an interview with BikePortland yesterday.
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The aftermath of last week’s crash on North Interstate
Avenue. Photo by Neighborhood Notes.

The driver of a pickup truck whose illegal right turn led to a bike/truck crash last Wednesday has been cited for two traffic violations typically associated with $695 in fines, Portland police said Tuesday.

The man whose bicycle hit the side of the truck, meanwhile, remains in the hospital but continues to recover from eight broken ribs, a punctured lung and other injuries.

Here’s what police spokesman Sgt. Pete Simpson wrote in an email, confirming the summary of the commuter on the bike, Curtis Crothers:

The vehicle was southbound on Interstate and made an illegal right turn onto Greeley Avenue. Sign posted “No Right Turn.” Bicycle rider was coming downhill on Interstate in the bike lane and was unable to stop in time and was hit by the car making the illegal right. Rider was injured but not traumatic injuries. Car driver was not impaired. Cited for Failure to Obey a Traffic Control Device and Careless Driving.

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Daimler Trucks engineer Curtis
Crothers, who suffered extensive
injuries from a crash on
Interstate Avenue Wednesday.

An engineer biking home from his job on Swan Island was severely injured by colliding with a pickup truck after its driver allegedly made an illegal 135-degree turn onto Greeley Avenue Wednesday afternoon.

Curtis Crothers, 53, was in good condition at Legacy Emanuel hospital Friday after suffering eight broken ribs, a broken scapula, a punctured lung, internal bleeding, a dislocated shoulder and 24 hours in intensive care.

Crothers is a regular bike commuter to Daimler Trucks North America, which employs 3,000 workers in the North Portland industrial park. The bike commuting route to Swan Island has been subject to controversy; many of the area’s hundreds of bike commuters avoid the area where Crothers was hit by illegally using the Ash Grove Cement Road, a private path owned by Union Pacific Railroad.

Crothers, however, had stopped using the Cement Road after concluding it was itself unsafe due to train tracks that curve across it and after a run-in with railroad security.

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