Despite Pandemic, Portland Sees Most Traffic Deaths Since 1996 There were 54 traffic-related deaths in Portland last year even as the coronavirus pandemic forced millions of people to stay home much more than usual. The city wants to eliminate all traffic-related deaths by 2025. Andrew Theen, oregonlive.com | January 6, 2021 | News
(TNS) Catherine Randolph was struck and killed on New Year’s Eve while walking across cavernous 122nd Avenue in Southeast Portland, the 18th and last pedestrian to die in 2020.
Police said Randolph, 51, was walking across the five-lane urban highway outside a crosswalk when the driver of a 2002 Honda Accord smashed into her near Southeast Tibbets Street, a stubby residential road that dead ends on either side of 122nd, one of Portland’s most dangerous streets no matter how you’re traveling.
Fifty-four people died in Portland traffic crashes last year, the most since 1996.
Speeding and impairment drove an increase in traffic fatalities in 2020, according to the Portland Bureau of Transportation.
Fifty-four people died in crashes Portland last year, the most since 1996, when 59 people were killed. The jump is similar to increases in other metropolitan areas across the county, PBOT said in a Wednesday, Jan. 6, press release.
The increases seem unlikely because traffic counts fell last year because of the COVID-19 pandemic. But PBOT said an analysis of the local crashes reveals that a high percentage of drivers were engaging in risky behaviors. According to PBOT, drivers crashed into fixed objects, including parked cars and utility poles, at high rates 11 last year, compared to about eight most years. Speeding and impairment are believed to contribute to those kinds of crashes.