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.
[Read more…]

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.
[Read more…]

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:

I’ll be riding in the middle of the lane the whole way home today so I don’t get crushed by any fallen trees. Yikes!

— Jonathan Maus (@BikePortland) November 11, 2014

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.
[Read more…]

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.

[Read more…]

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.

[Read more…]

A Portland Fire & Rescue truck slid on ice
on Sam Jackson Park Road yesterday.
(Photo: PF&R)

A man crashed while bicycling downhill on SW Sam Jackson Park Road yesterday. Then, when Portland Fire & Rescue responded to the crash, their fire truck slid on the ice and smashed into a guard rail.

According to Portland Fire & Rescue, the crash happened during yesterday’s morning commute. When they arrived, the man who crashed his bike was up and walking around. Here’s more from PF&R about the conditions that led to the crashes:

“The ice was reportedly caused when the drainage along the side of the road became blocked with leaves. This caused water to flow over the roadway and subsequently the cold weather created ice.”

[Read more…]

Scene of this morning’s crash.
(Photos © J. Maus/BikePortland)

This morning just before 8:00 am, a man crashed and fell off of his bicycle while riding south on N. Vancouver Avenue just north of Broadway.[Read more…]

Another serious injury collision happened today on Highway 101.

According to the Oregon State Police, at about 1:25 pm, a 35-year old woman was riding northbound on the shoulder of Hwy 101 five miles south of Cannon Beach near milepost 35 (just south of Hug Point Road) when she was struck by a 78-year old woman driving a Dodge Caravan. The OSP says the woman driving the van “drifted onto the shoulder and struck the woman’s bicycle from behind.” No names have been released yet.

The woman riding the bike was with her husband. He was up the road a bit, then stopped and turned around shortly after the collision because his wife never caught up. The woman was flown to Legacy Emanuel Medical Center for treatment of critical injuries. The van operator and her passenger were not injured.
[Read more…]