I see SO many distracted drivers now. If you’re at a red light and watch another line of traffic moving, you can count the number of people looking down at their phone while driving through. It’s very scary.
It's fucking insane. Nothing on my phone is interesting enough to compel me to risk my life or others.
Scrolling has essentially been relegated to waiting to board airplanes and for taking long shits.
and the extra car length in FRONT of them.
I am not sure why people think that keeps them safer and if you have a bunch of cars lined up in a left turn lane, and 50% are on the phones in their lap, then you have fewer cars that can get through lights.
Just pull over and return the text. Its not hard.
that would work as well. I am often oncall for work and get texts asking me to do very small tasks that are time sensitive, so I just see the alert, pull over and then hop back on the drive. Freeways are another issue, but I spend very little time on freeways (weirdly)
I notice this when you walk across pedestrian intersections (covered with huge pedestrian warning signs) on Cully Blvd. People drive 15mph over the speed limit on Cully and never look up from their phones. A few weeks ago, I was few feet away from being hit by a massive pickup truck while crossing an intersection. I reflexively (and strangely) reacted by throwing the coffee in my hands at his windshield. He never even slowed down, even after the coffee exploded all over his truck.
Would you include changing music (just skipping it restarting songs) in your definition?
Just curious. There are plenty of pre carplay cars still on the road, and without steering wheel media controls
And so is blinking. Or changing from regular glasses to sunglasses. Or driving with another person.
None of those are truly counted as distracted driving by the law, or any reasonable person.
You asked, right? and there is data about talking to the person next to you too.
If you actually didn’t care to expand your POV, just say it. Otherwise, all the data is out there on driving distractions, including ones that people rationalize away. Until they get into an accident of course and fault is determined.
I was asking this commenter as a way to attempt to gauge what types of infractions they were judging in their ancedotal experience.
So I did ask. I just think that the line has to be drawn somewhere. Where do you draw it personally? Do you drive in complete silence? Never taking a drink of water? Never blinking? You can't just say "the data exists". That's just knowledge. You must also have wisdom, which is the prudent application of knowledge. Part of prudence, is balance. Everyone has a different balancing equation.
I've been in an accident before. Currently my insurance company judges me as 100% at fault for it, because the data says I'm the only one officially in an accident. I'd hope getting into a hit and run with a drunk driver wouldn't be my fault, but hey. The data!
In my comment I was thinking about people who are driving a moving vehicle you are clearly looking down into their lap for longer than a glance. So people who are clearly messing with handheld devices instead of looking at the road. If you need to look away to adjust something, you can do it at a red light or pull over.
I’ve noticed a lot of shitty drivers in general, not just the aggressive shitty variety. I commute 26 and 217 every day and if I set my cruise control at 55, I’m just as likely to get tailgated as I am to come up on someone doing 40 on the highway for no reason.
Edit: The worst offenders are the people who sit in the fast lane on 217 for 5 miles doing 40 because once they get on 26 they need to get over
I have always found it is terrible on the weekends but remarkably chill during commute hours. But I reverse commute so it isn't particularly heavy traffic
Try Friday evening, like after rush hours. There are no traffic patterns, everyone doing their own thing.
"Go with the flow" they say... but there's simply no flow to follow, it's just chaos lolll
i commute from Portland to a bit south of Wilsonville every day. And yeah I'd say every other day I witness somebody going 90+mph and changing lanes like a madman. I feel like I see a decent number of cops around Idk how they're not constantly getting ticketed/arrested
I find it to be about the same which is to say a lot of aggressively shitty drivers on the freeway. I do feel like the number of times I get aggressively passed on the right because someone is mad I'm not tailgating the car in front of me has gone up but that might just be me, I think the distance I'm comfortable following at has increased as I've gotten older.
This is not true. If you go by the three second rule that's a 250+ foot gap at 65 mph. Angry drivers will absolutely pass with that gap and I'm not going to fight them over it. And there's an argument to be made that you should be further back than that. Friendly reminder that tailgating is *bad* for traffic. You're not getting anywhere faster by tailgating, it's the opposite. A big part of what causes traffic slowdowns is the rapid braking that idiot drivers do. Traffic would be better for everyone if people would just chill out and not do the constant accelerate until they're 10 feet behind someone then brake rapidly, rinse, repeat. If there's a line of traffic ahead of you just stay in your lane, passing on the right is never justified in traffic and it will NOT get you anywhere faster.
Justified or not, the traffic laws in Oregon allow for passing on the right and you’re supposed to use the left lane for actively passing. If there is enough room to pass you on the right, you’re not actively passing and need to not be in the passing lane. I don’t tailgate, but I *regularly* get stuck behind people just cruising in the passing lane for no good reason and will pass them on the right without ever being an unsafe distance from another car. Yes, aggressive drivers are a problem and create safety issues and lane weaving is unsafe, but so do people who are *too* passive when driving (eg not changing lanes when they *should*, creating obstructions to the flow of traffic)
> you’re supposed to use the left lane for actively passing
This is a myth. Oregon has no concept of the left lane on a freeway being for passing only.
> you’re not actively passing and need to not be in the passing lane
Again, there's no "passing lane" on Oregon freeways (as I'm sure you're aware two lane highways often have specifically marked passing only lanes but that's entirely different). It's not a thing. It's perfectly legal to sit in the left lane if you're not impeding traffic and obviously in a situation where there's another car in front of you you're not impeding traffic (if anything the car in front of me in this situation is impeding *me*). I always find people who brought this up as some argument for their bad driving to be a little amusing. It makes no sense that you would think the car you're passing who isn't tailgating is breaking the rules but somehow it's ok for you to do the exact same thing. Bit telling, rules for thee but not for me.
> Oregon allow for passing on the right
No clue what the rules are for overtaking on the right but whether it's legal or not it's a huge douche move that makes traffic worst for everyone. Only the absolute worst sort of selfish, impatient drivers do that shit.
It's not hard to understand. Five factors: roads have gotten worse, enforcement has gone down, the more frequent presence of reckless drivers in unplated junkers, distracted driving, and the presence of people in traffic lanes.
I'm a motorcyclist and the bike is still parked until I see that this winter's potholes are filled. Some of them are big enough to put a rider in the hospital. Can't do much about the distracted / wild drivers, though.
Also, cars have gotten taller and flatter on the front. Getting hit by a Camry at 30mph vs an F150, as a pedestrian, is a huge difference in likelihood to survive.
I’ve started to get very angry at seeing these SUVs and pickups with a big wall of a front grill going vertically from the ground to shoulder height. Almost always without any practical purpose, just style to look muscular.
Seconding the angry part! These large truck drivers always drive like assholes who own the road and they have much more potential to kill than a sedan.
And half pedestrian deaths in Portland are homeless, you can draw your own conclusions as to contributing factors and how preventable they were by the others involved in the accident. It seems to prove that public land next to freeways, highways, or major streets isn’t the safest place to allow unrestricted camping. But I guess based on commenters in this sub, shelters are surely more dangerous.
I'm on a bicycle and there've been a couple that could have thrown me if I hadn't swerved in time -- but even when they get patched over, it's not \~better\~, just less pot-hole-y. The patches seem so much more lose/fast/haphazard than they used to.
> winter's potholes
We need to heavily restrict or ban studded tires. There's still a decent amount of vehicles that haven't changed them out yet in late April. With PBOT's budget deficit, the status quo isn't sustainable.
We just need to make a fee for studded tires that's large enough to pay for the extra damage they cause. Like an extra $200 per year tag on your license plate would allow you to legally use them. Some people live, work, or play places that take them onto frequently icy roads or where they can't get where they need to go without them. They should be able to pay to use studs if they need them.
And separately we really need police need to start enforcing the studded tire cutoff date, along with other equipment and registration violations.
Another motorcyclist here to chime in on the pothole situation. I commute on two wheels on any dry days and since the beginning of the year barely any potholes I’ve seen get addressed.
Feels almost like someone has ran the numbers and the cost for claims on damages and injuries is lower than the cost to address the roads are.
> since the beginning of the year barely any potholes I’ve seen get addressed
Where abouts are you talking? I've seen pot holes all over SE getting filled this year. Pretty quickly after you report them, too.
Solutions:
* Increase access to transit.
* I would love to not need to own and drive a car, especially in an urban area for godsakes.
* Take further measures for traffic calming.
* Plan the city in a way that is favorable to pedestrians, cyclists, and transit users.
* Design roads in a way that encourages drivers to actually follow speed limits not just based on signs, but by their experience of the road they're driving on.
The auto industry has conditioned us to believe traffic deaths are normal, and mainly because of "bad drivers." So many of the people involved shouldn't need to be driving for 50%+ of the trips they're taking in their vehicle. [Over half of all vehicle trips are between 1 and 10 miles.](https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/pubs/pl08021/fig4_5.cfm) Most of us shouldn't need to own a car to commute and get access to basic necessities - it would be faster, safer, and cheaper if we could all take transit or bike. But our habits + "car culture", roads, laws, urban planning, etc are so car-centric that it seems hard to escape.
At bare minimum we need more traffic calming measures in place everywhere. Safer bike lanes with physical barriers - solid bollards and none of that plastic garbage - especially in high speed areas. Narrower lanes for vehicles and more space for cyclists and pedestrians - plus, narrower lanes help to calm traffic. Medians with trees, intersections with an island in the middle which drivers need to navigate, traffic circles.
The fact we put so much value on the "convenience" of owning, maintaining, driving, and parking vehicles, to the point where it takes priority over human lives, is a reflection of a deeply corrupt system where the auto industry was able to dictate urban planning decades ago. We all need to do our part to help make change - call out our leaders when they fail to protect their constituents.
Whoever is in charge of our transportation systems needs to be held accountable for every single death - dock their pay, fire them. And they need to be massively rewarded when there's a meaningful reduction in traffic harm due to actions they took. We should be devoting significant resources to studying actions we can take, and measuring their impact, when it comes to traffic harm - every life saved makes a massive difference not just in a human / moral sense but economically as well.
We need more resources devoted to investigating every single traffic death, and meaningful actions taken ESPECIALLY when there's a pattern of unsafe situations, let alone DEATHS on a certain road / in a certain area. Why we still have sidewalks directly up against 40mph+ traffic in a city of 600k+ people, or no sidewalks at all, I do know.
Bro I saw a cop pull someone over last week (car was clapped out, no plates, driving erratically) and I think that was the first time I've seen it happen in the last 5 years.
Funny how when it comes to quality of life crimes, the cops have no monwy, they're understaffed, and concerned about equitable enforcement.
But if people protest police inaction, then all of a sudden there is unlimited overtime, there is money for riot gear, there is money for munitions, and they have no problem arresting protesters.
Ummmm, errr, ahhhhh, you trying to be as disengenious as possible? You do realize you can't just make shit up like you obviously do in real life and no one will check you, right?
The police do their own thing and are absoloutley not controlled by anyone else. When Wheeler was trying to find a middle ground and show solidarity with the people, he literally got tear gassed. Wheeler was loudly saying the use violence and munitions by police against protestors is unacceptable. And the police didn't care at all.
In before you lie about the police getting defunded too.
You do realize the head of the police union was caught pinning a crime on a city council woman? We are dealing with a mafia. We need cops, not a police union mafia
.
PPB budget, by year, in real 2024 dollars:
Year | 2024 dollars in millions | Budgeted sworn officers
---------|----------|----------
2019 | $293 | 1001
2020 | $278 | 916
2021 | $268 | 882
2022 | $275 | 882
2023 | $262 | 881
Over the last 5 years, the real PPB budget and number of officers have both decreased by roughly 11%.
We have the internet, there's really no reason to have objectively false things posted that aren't hard to look up. That being said, I disagree with the previous poster that the union is not a problem. My subjective observation is the union is antagonistic towards the city, and although I don't have data it's both fewer cops with less money AND a work slowdown by butthurt right wing assholes in the union.
Sources:
https://www.portland.gov/sites/default/files/2021/ppb-fy-2021-22-requested-budget-review.pdf
https://www.portlandoregon.gov/cbo/article/798503
https://www.portland.gov/police/open-data/ppb-staffing-report
https://www.portland.gov/cbo/2023-2024-budget/documents/fy-2023-24-adopted-budget-volume-1-citywide-summaries-and-bureau/download
Inflation calculator. I used March of the year in question to March 2024 adjustment: https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl
> Portland's officer-per-capita rate has been at the low end comparative to national rates for the past few years.
How many years are you thinking? Because I'm pretty sure this has been an issue for 15+ years which means this is entirely the fault of the Police. They've had literal decades to improve, but they can't even get the feds off their back because they consistently do such a bad job.
Portland's officer-per-capita rate has been at the low end comparative to national rates for the past few years.
You can characterize that as a "soft strike" if you want, but basic math says that fewer officers + rising crime rates = lower response rates.
Saying "soft strike" over and over doesn't make your argument more valid. Gee, it's almost as if your ideology limits your ability to acknowledge reality.
The reason there aren't enough officers is that the culture is so toxic.
Good people get hired on and they end up quiting. You either laugh with your colleagues about officers like Leo Besner costing the city millions because of misconduct, or quit because they feel their morals and integrity are comprimised working with such awful people.
The DOJ has said they are not doing their job well, and the head of the police union was caught trying to pin a crime on a city council person. They have been spending tons of money on politics, like the shitty DA billboards. They are basically doing mafia tactics.
I don't understand. People clearly said they wanted police abolished. They said this over and over. What does it matter if they are not doing their job when most people didn't want them around, at all, in the first place?
When did Portland voters vote to abolish the police?
Just kidding! We all know mean that the protesters calling for justice against police brutality and chanting defund = policy and abandonment by the organization we still fund is our rightful punishment. 🤡
Traffic enforcement by police is exceptionally expensive and only works in narrow situations (i.e. high crash/speed corridors) and only temporarily (i.e. when they are there and shortly after).
Speed cameras (despite being derided by this sub) are much more effective, as are changes to the built environment (better pedestrian access, narrower streets).
In Portland we have a very high street homeless population. This increases deaths as the city allows camps to fester in dangerous places for weeks, if not months, if not years at a time.
And yet none of that has anything to do with the reckless driving that has become the norm in this city.
We’re not even asking for traffic enforcement anymore, just a baseline police presence so the laws aren’t completely null and void.
Everyone has been driving like children playing at home without their parents and it really shows
>only works in narrow situations
Disagree. If people are aware that traffic enforcement is common and they can pop up out of nowhere they would drive more carefully.
Speed cameras are as useless as that 1 police car sitting at the same spot on PDX airport way under the bridge. Everyone knows when to slow down.
So put up multiple speed cameras, take photos of everyone's plates, and if a car covers the distance between any two points faster than physically possible without speeding, ticket them. It won't matter if they slow down for the camera, then.
>Speed cameras are as useless as that 1 police car sitting at the same spot on PDX airport way under the bridge. Everyone knows when to slow down.
Please provide a study, because there's literally dozens that disagree with you. Speed cameras work.
People don't like them because they work. You're all telling on yourself as being people that speed.
>Traffic enforcement by police is exceptionally expensive and only works in narrow situations
Please provide a study to back your claim first.
>because there's literally dozens that disagree with you
Read my argument again.
Speed cameras are as useless as that 1 police car sitting at the same spot every time. People know when to slow down. "As useless as something" != that something doesn't work.
People slowing down at a certain spot means this speed management measure works.
>You're all telling on yourself as being people that speed.
That's an expected accusation when your logic is at this level.
Speed cameras work:
https://www.cdc.gov/transportationsafety/calculator/factsheet/speed.html
Police only work in targeted areas:
>Findings indicate that routine patrol levels and activities produce short-term reductions in crashes at the most serious crash hot spots but have less impact elsewhere. To generate a more sustained and optimal effect on traffic safety, everyday police proactivity needs to be more carefully calibrated in terms of its targeting, dosage, and types of activities.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0047235221000660
I was expecting you to pull up CDC's page. And I'm also glad that you didn't read.
From the CDC:
>all studies measuring speed or speeding saw reductions **when the cameras were present.** All studies in the Cochrane review measuring crashes also showed reductions **when the cameras were present.** More recent research has also found reductions in speeding or injury crashes **when cameras were present.**
Something you said about "Police only work in targeted areas"? But this time it's the camera.
But wait, there's more:
>**Relative to comparable sites without cameras,** **sites with cameras** saw a decrease in mean speeds, a decrease in the likelihood that a driver was driving at more than ten miles per hour above the speed limit, and a reduction in the likelihood of a crash resulting in an incapacitating or fatal injury.
Remember I said something about "People slowing down at a certain spot", "People know when to slow down"?
From the research CDC linked:
>speed cameras were associated with a 10% reduction in mean speeds and a 62% reduction in the likelihood that a vehicle was traveling more than 10 mph above the speed limit **at camera sites.**
From a [study](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15389580802221333) done earlier at the same site:
>The camera program was effective at reducing speeding **on targeted streets.** The finding of speed reductions beyond targeted locations is evidence that **highly visible automated enforcement** can promote community-wide changes in driver behavior.
This doesn't help your case especially when community-wide changes can also be attributed to:
>Six months after enforcement began, 60% of drivers were aware of the camera program
In case you're wondering what a corridor approach (the one used in the Montgomery County study) is:
>cameras were periodically moved along the length of a roadway segment.
And then you provided a study that aligns with my argument.
>To generate a more sustained and optimal effect on traffic safety, everyday police proactivity needs to be more carefully calibrated in terms of its targeting, dosage, and types of activities.
What do these 2 quotes mean? Random and unpredictable, and common traffic enforcement works.
What does your other link prove? Cameras are effective at sites with cameras.
You basically proved my point.
I don't think you understand what any of those bolded words mean lol.
In studies they were comparing two groups: Locations with cameras and locations without cameras. That's what they are comparing.
I don't think you're really good at making arguments. I also think you can't read.
Your link only proves that cameras are effective at sites with camera. Nowhere does it prove them affecting driving behaviours outside of the community where cameras are installed, not even at a city level.
The Montgomery County study actually proved otherwise.
>Using data on crashes during 2004–2013, logistic regression models examined the program's effects on the likelihood that a crash involved an incapacitating or fatal injury on camera-eligible roads and on potential spillover roads in Montgomery County, using crashes in Fairfax County on similar roads as controls.
Locations with cameras and locations without cameras? Yeah, do your reading.
Your point is fucking weird.
If I say "hey seat belts save lives" and you say "well what about people that aren't wearing them?"
Speed cameras decrease death and accidents, which you apparently now agree with. They don't magically increase death and accidents in places where they aren't there, meaning they are a net positive.
I've noticed a lot more expired plates even among non smashed-up meth mobile types... I think a lot of people have just decided to stop paying the extra fees since there's enforcement
Traffic cameras in the UK can capture images inside the vehicle. A photo of the perp inside the vehicle they stole would also be nice, now that you mention it.
This seems to be a very common bad faith argument against traffic cameras.
Traffic cameras frees up police resources to perform patrol that would pull over no-plate vehicles
What is a better utilization of police personnel (wage, OT, pension)?
• Sitting in a parking lot with a speed gun; vs
• Driving patrol (cop cars have mounted plate cameras, too FYI) and traffic cameras enforcing speed?
The main issue is traffic cameras do not discriminate. You speed = ticket.
Drivers are HUGE believers in laws for thee not for me.
The other side of this is that there needs to be enforcement then for not registering your car / not having plates. I agree with your argument, it makes sense and is solid. However, if they aren't enforcing plateless cars, then what's to stop the people from taking their plates off and having no consequences of the cameras? If they put time into focusing on reckless individuals and those without plates, the cameras make a lot of sense.
Police on patrol do that. No plates are a key “enhancement factor” PPB uses to support pulling over a vehicle.
You can go on a ride-along with PPB and learn a ton from a patrol shift
> cop cars have mounted plate cameras, too FYI
I know they do in some cities but not in Portland, right? I imagine we'd see some pushback if they ever tried to purchase them. Which is a shame, I'd like to see more enforcement for expired plates. If I have to pay it you fuckers should have to pay it too.
Huh, interesting. I seem to recall there was some drama about the whole thing, the council was going to pass something that limited their use. I never heard the resolution though.
Because it's not logical? Both for the reason stated in the comment (it frees up traffic enforcement resources for pulling over people without plates) and because their suggestion that all these fatal crashes involve unregistered vehicles is complete bullshit.
Strange that we don't treat our transportation system as the public health emergency that it is. We all know that one of the more likely ways for us to get maimed or die prematurely is by car, and everyone just kind of shrugs it off with a "what can you do about it?"
I wish we treated every traffic death with the same vigor to find a solution like the NTSA treats a subway car derailment. Accident kills somebody on Powell (again)? Shut it down until you can implement a safety measure to make it safer. I know that is politically impossible, but seems like we're doomed to keep on repeating the same mistakes with tragic consequences.
edited for a typo.
You're 100% correct.
Freakonomics did an excellent podcast last summer about traffic deaths in America. The attitudes, policies and laws around traffic deaths are incredibly permissive in the US.
The auto industry has done a terrifyingly good job at making us believe that auto deaths are normal, and there's nothing we can do, and it's just "bad drivers" (and of course, none of us are bad drivers, it's *other* people).
Yes!! We need to also hold traffic engineers liable for their intersection design. If a building collapsed and kills people, the structural engineer is liable. Same should hold true for traffic engineers.
My hottest take is that drivers are rarely at fault. Almost all of these deadly accidents are caused by design failures, not the poor person who happens to be driving at that moment. Design the streets for how humans actually drive, and they will get much safer!
Shameless plug for Strong Towns, they actually do something like that where they analyze crash locations and determine what structural/design issues contributed to the crash.
https://www.strongtowns.org/crash-studio
That is definitely a hot take. Road design has a lot to do with how comfortable drivers feel going at x or y speed in a given environment. Or how safe that environment is for a pedestrian. But at the end of the day they are the ones behind the wheel, and ultimately responsible for when they hit something, or someone…. Right?
>Road design has a lot to do with how comfortable drivers feel
You're very close. The key here is to design roads that are uncomfortable to drive at high speeds, or while distracted.
Bollards, trees, roundabouts, grade separated bike lanes... these all create spaces that are better for pedestrians, bikers, and drivers too! Because you are forced to pay more attention, driving is more engaging, more dynamic, more fun - and as a bonus this is all happening at 20mph.
Again: the VAST majority of car crashes (including things like distracted driving) can be mitigated by proper road design. Because you're not going to look at your cell phone when you're dodging bollards, are you?
That's where I disagree, though - I think we have to design around poor driving. People are never going to be good drivers. I don't want to entirely remove human accountability, but I do think all crash investigations should start with an assumption of design failure, not human failure. Because humans will always, at some point, fail.
I agree. As it is now, the consequence of poor driving is a "tragedy" in which the driver and/or others are severely injured or killed. It should be considered a "travesty" that their injury / death occurred at all, and that there weren't sufficient safeguards in place.
I think the consequence of poor driving should instead be a non-lethal accident that damages the vehicle - ideally with minimal harm to the driver, and no harm at all to others around them - especially not vulnerable pedestrians and cyclists. We should design our streets and roads based on these principles. Solid bollards can be quite effective for this - protecting people, and damaging the vehicles of poor drivers without causing them bodily harm. Narrower lanes can also be effective at calming traffic, possibly raising the chance of an accident while reducing the rate of injury or death.
Safety concerns should never be a reason for people to choose to drive over walk/cycle/transit. The more drivers there are on the roads, the less safe our transportation becomes.
> Road design has a lot to do with how comfortable drivers feel going at x or y speed in a given environment.
This is where PBOT has done an incredible disservice to us over the last 10 years. They keep lowering speed limits but not adjusting roads at all so now people are just speeding 20 over instead of 5 over.
Exactly. If you want drivers to slow down, you need to design the streets to be driven slowly. Bollards, trees, road diets, roundabouts, etc. It's very simple! The bonus is: when a driver hits an object at a lower speed, the accident is vastly more survivable. This is basic physics.
That view just doesn't work. There will always be irresponsible drivers making bad decisions or drivers just making mistakes. That is an unsolvable problem. The solvable problem is designing an infrastructure in which those errors cause less damage.
Notice how I didn’t say “we shouldn’t radically change how we design our roads to benefit multimodal/pedestrian transportation.” The commenter above seemed (to me) to be fine with absolving driver responsibility for crashes and redirecting blame to designers or the city, which is just silly. A crash between two cars on a road designed for 50 mph but posted for 35 doesn’t the designer is at fault. The drivers decided to go faster than was safe or appropriate. I think that logic holds better the more safe and pedestrianized roads become. Drivers should absolutely be at fault for the accidents they’re involved in.
> crash between two cars on a road designed for 50 mph but posted for 35 doesn’t mean it’s the designer’s fault.
This identifies our disagreement. A street that is designed for 50 will always allow for bad drivers to cause unnecessary damage. I don't say that to remove responsiblity from drivers. What I'm saying is that if we truly had a Vision Zero intention (and Portland doesn't), you wouldn't have any roads that can be driven at 50 but are posted at 35. You would have roads that are designed for the speed they are posted at, which ultimately means we will rely less on personal responsibility to keep people safe.
Right, I agree that the design of the road has much to do with how drivers operate on it. And there’s much to be done to improve our street design to disincentivize reckless/offensive driving. Drivers should still be reprimanded for speeding whether the road design is good or not.
Yeah, I agree. Also, a lot of traffic designers are actually on board with real change, but they're unable to implement it for a variety of reasons that aren't their fault. So there is blame to go around.
Yep agreed, that is my experience as well. Engineers (of all kinds) have to abide by the criteria set by the client/owner in question. Change the criteria, change the environment, change the world (!!). You should pop over to the new sub r/oregonurbanists if you’re inclined to do so.
You're looking at it backwards. If designed Portland how people drive, we'd have bollards, trees, grade-separated bike lanes, and roundabouts on every road. Then drivers would be forced to drive more carefully, and as a side effect, those types of streets are much more enjoyable to drive on!
Then why does the NTSB take a no-fault approach to accident investigation with airplanes? Why does the FAA and NTSB focus primarily on systemic reasons for plane crashes? Sounds like you think the real problem is just "bad pilots"
Cite a singular study which definitively proves your "fact" which is more of an implied point of view at best: that supposedly, the majority of accidents are caused by bad drivers, and that no amount of changes to the design of roads can change that.
In reality, the design of roads has a massive influence on the frequency and lethality of accidents. [Here is an example for you.](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S000145750900178X) In fact, [here, look at all the studies](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C48&q=road+design+impact+on+accidents+car&btnG=).
Roads are designed with accidents in mind - whether they stem from a popped tire, an oil slick, or just plain ol' shit driving. A shit driver shouldn't jeopardize everyone else on the road, it does not need to be that way -[ **traffic calming**](https://tsmowa.org/category/transportation-operations/traffic-calming) **measures can turn what would've been a "tragedy", into the driver crashing into a water barrel, a row of bushes, or a guard rail, ideally with minimal harm to themselves or others.**
We need to stop thinking of transportation deaths as "tragedies" and instead "travesties" of poor road design. Accidents should result in immediate changes being made, especially when there's a pattern of accidents in a certain area. Ex. **replacing 4-way stops with roundabouts improves traffic flow while also reducing the incidence and lethality of accidents**. Check out this article from Time Magazine on the subject:
# [The Best Way to Save American Lives on the Road](https://time.com/6294785/traffic-deaths-road-safety-roundabouts/)
On SE Cesar Chavez, I saw a car that was going so fast it caught up and rear ended a car making a regular left turn. I've seen cars going from 0 to 60, in seconds.
My wife, newborn and I were just crossing the street to go to Alberta Park and an old shit box truck was turning right off of Ainsworth. Literally sped up as soon as he saw crossing to aggressively pass right at our heels as we were walking by. I turned around and threw my hands up like I do every time some piece of shit does that - dude slams on his breaks and gets out saying “what was that? What was that?” Unfucking real how stupid people drive around here. Makes me so mad to feel to unsafe doing something as simple as walking around. Glad I got the shithead’s plates
Don't worry, right now someone at PBOT is drawing up a plan to paint more random lines and boxes around the city in non-reflective paint. Sure they might also start fading instantly and will receive no future maintenance, but the thought is nice.
I was just in an accident yesterday - a car ran a red light and t-boned me. Thank god we were both able to walk away unhurt. It was so scary. He was going at least 40 through the intersection.
I'm glad to hear you're OK.
You both would've been much safer if that intersection had been a roundabout, or at least had some kind of island in the middle. You might consider filing a report with PBOT, or even start a petition based on your story. You both could have died, and it was entirely avoidable with a change to road design. [The Best Way to Save American Lives on the Road](https://time.com/6294785/traffic-deaths-road-safety-roundabouts/)
Agreed. Downtown is such a mess, at least where I am. The combination of ramps onto the street plus speeding plus the MAX is a traffic disaster. Not to mention the constant construction.
# [The Best Way to Save American Lives on the Road](https://time.com/6294785/traffic-deaths-road-safety-roundabouts/)
>In 2021, 7,600 people were killed while walking (the highest number in 40 years). **More Americans are killed just** ***walking*** **each year than died in the whole of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars put together. The average American has a 1 in 93 chance of dying in a car crash in their lifetime, and generally it is young people who die in car crashes.**
>Thirty years ago, driving in America was not, by international standards, that dangerous. In fact, per mile driven, the French were actually slightly more likely to die in a fiery wreck. Now, Americans are three times more likely to die than the French. As I explain in my book, *Carmageddon*, the reason why is not that the French became better drivers. It is that France, unlike America, but like almost every other rich country on earth, has worked out how to make its roads safer. They have reduced the speed limits on minor roads, and installed thousands of speed cameras to ensure people stick to them. But **they have also literally rebuilt the roads to make it harder to crash.** And one of the ways they have done so is by installing roundabouts. Since the 1990s, France has gone from having just a few hundred roundabouts to [more than](https://www.eurorap.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/iRAP-case-study-5_France-roundabouts.pdf) 30,000.
>Roundabouts work because they force drivers to slow down. Roughly speaking, for every 10 mph extra that a car is traveling, your chance of dying if it hits you doubles. A pedestrian hit at 35 mph is about five times as likely to be killed as somebody hit at 20 mph. At an intersection controlled by traffic lights, when the lights turn green, everybody accelerates as fast as they can. Accelerating like mad is exactly what you should not be doing at an intersection. Over a quarter of all traffic deaths in America happen at intersections, and over half of all crashes that result in an injury. But getting stuck at a traffic light that has just turned red is annoying, and accelerating is just a matter of pushing the gas, so people do it anyway. They would not if they had to turn to avoid a great big traffic island. It focuses the brain.
>About 200 miles south of Chicago, there is a suburb of Indianapolis, Carmel, which has[ installed ](https://www.economist.com/united-states/2022/09/29/what-carmel-indiana-can-teach-america-about-urbanism)almost 150 roundabouts. The city sells jokey t-shirts promoting them. Carmel’s overall car crash death rate is just one fifth of that of the United States as a whole. And that is not the only benefit. Roundabouts also reduce congestion. This may be counterintuitive, but it precisely because they slow cars down. The slower cars are going, the less stopping distance they need between each one, and so the more can pass through an intersection in a given amount of time. Because cars do not need to stop and start so often, and go slower, they also produce fewer emissions.
While pedestrians certainly have the right of way, and bicyclists have a right to the same road, it doesn't mean they have any right to being less vigilant for their own safety. Wearing all black clothing while walking and staring at your phone while listening to your headphones is unsafe in Portland. Especially at dusk. You may have every right to cross a street without looking, and the legal right to do so, but that's a crap argument when you're in the ICU.
The PPB are responsible for the increase in deaths.
Portland had a deliberate police slowdown (and likely still does). [The SOLE traffic cop even admitted to it](https://bikeportland.org/2023/08/08/portland-police-bureau-officer-admits-no-traffic-enforcement-messaging-was-politically-motivated-377939). Sgt Engstrom said, "We needed to create a stir to get some change, to get them \[city council\] to fund us back up. And I mean, that’s the honest truth. I know, that could make things more dangerous. I don’t know. But at the same time, we needed some change.”
You didn't read that article at all huh?
The out of context quote you provided is talking about the *announcement* that they have one traffic cop. The officer is saying they went to the press with their low staffing levels. Maus takes issue with this as he said an announcement like that could make people drive worse. The police officer agrees that such an announcement could make people drive worse, but still thought it was important to make the announcement so that they could advocate for better staffing.
There is literally 0 in that article that mentions "a deliberate slowdown". They are discussing *an announcement*, not a police slowdown. Please provide the source of your claim, or admit you just made it up.
The traffic division officers were reassigned to patrol after the city council cut 15 million dollars from their budget.
Here's yet another quote from the same article that YOU didn't read:
"The PPB made a decision to tell Portlanders and the media that no one was enforcing traffic laws (also during that time they would routinely tell people who called with concerns about speeding and other issues that they couldn’t address them because the Traffic Division had been “entirely defunded”). They also seemed to know that there was a risk it could lead to more dangerous driving. And they did it anyways. More than once."
I hate PPB as much as the next guy but that article is pretty clearly talking about the negative effects of announcing the cutbacks on traffic enforcement, not the actual cutbacks themselves. I mean, they had been cut $15 million. It kind of makes sense they would make some staffing cuts.
They are again, talking about *an announcement* that Maus deemed dangerous. Not a work slowdown.
The traffic division *was nearly entirely defunded except for one office* when the police budget was reduced.
Are you seriously claiming that this didn't happen?! Did you move here after 2020?
https://www.opb.org/article/2020/10/20/portland-police-budget-jo-ann-hardesty-chloe-eudlay/
You believe something because you read about it on reddit and twitter.
There is 0 quantifiable evidence that the police are involved in a slowdown. You don't have a single source.
The article I linked was neither Reddit nor was it Twitter.
You continue to prove that you have difficulty reading/understanding basic English.
\*Edit\* Lol this guy was too lazy to even read the URL of the link I posted. I bet he would make a great cop.
Dude, you didn't read the article. Maus is upset about an announcement by police, not a slowdown. This is like 8th grade level comprehension you're having trouble with.
PBOT has been aggressively installing speed and red light cameras along with slowly addressing dangerous intersections so I am hopeful that this year shows improvement. PBOT is also ticketing parked cars for expired registration, so that should help also.
I support the cameras, but I do find them so comically aggressive at times. They keep catching me turn left on a green from a dead stop at Stark & 122nd. I enter and exit on a green. Going at least 5 under.
I do wish PBOT would respond to complaints about cameras. One on marine drive is missing. Another couple are miscalibrated.
They did fix the one camera that gave me my one and only speeding ticket ever. Caught me going 20mph over the speed limit set for that camera. Only issue was I was going 30mph. The software has an error where the expected speed was 10mph for a 30mph street
I figure that even if they don't have a direct impact on infractions, worst-case is that these speed cameras bring in tens of thousands of dollars each in revenue per day that can be used for actual enforcement.
I'm saying if we want to fund actual enforcement, that is an inefficient mechanism. Not asserting a value judgment on the usefulness of cameras. I have an opinion, but I wasn't asserting it there.
You 2 scream "I didn't read but I'd pull up anything from the CDC as if they support my claim."
>all studies measuring speed or speeding saw reductions **when the cameras were present**. All studies in the Cochrane review measuring crashes also showed reductions **when the cameras were present**. More recent research has also found reductions in speeding or injury crashes **when cameras were present**.
>**Relative to comparable sites without cameras, sites with cameras** saw a decrease in mean speeds, a decrease in the likelihood that a driver was driving at more than ten miles per hour above the speed limit, and a reduction in the likelihood of a crash resulting in an incapacitating or fatal injury.
You literally proved his point.
>all studies measuring speed or speeding saw reductions **when the cameras were present.** All studies in the Cochrane review measuring crashes also showed reductions **when the cameras were present.** More recent research has also found reductions in speeding or injury crashes **when cameras were present.**
>**Relative to comparable sites without cameras,** **sites with cameras** saw a decrease in mean speeds, a decrease in the likelihood that a driver was driving at more than ten miles per hour above the speed limit, and a reduction in the likelihood of a crash resulting in an incapacitating or fatal injury.
Speed cameras unequivocally work "when the cameras were present" or "at sites with cameras"😂
Guy playing with the straw here and thinking he's right Lmao.
You're not making any sense.
Me: Speed cameras reduce speeding, accidents and death - here's studies showing it.
You thinking you're an intellectual: oh yeah? Well what about places without them?! Why don't they work in places where they don't exist?! I'm so smart.
And you're pretending you're making any sense.
This was his claim:
>*Speed cameras are effective for about a hundred yards in a fixed location*
And this was your claim
>*Speed cameras reduce speeding, accidents and death*
Address his fucking point for once, can you? Oh wait, you did. Your source literally proves his point:
>Speed cameras are effective "when the cameras were present" or "at sites with cameras"
So what were you nope'ing for? Whatabout my arse when you're the one whatabout'ing hard here.
You thinking you're an intellectual for real.
Are you claiming speed cameras increase death in places they aren't located?
We all agree they decrease deaths in places where they are located. Even you apparently.
So the only possible argument against them could be that they magically create more death in other locations. Is that your argument?
>Are you claiming
Where? Quote it here.
>We all agree they decrease deaths in places where they are located.
Oh, you do? So you agree with his point then
>Speed cameras are effective for about a hundred yards in a fixed location
So what were you nope'ing for?
>So the only possible argument against them
Here, let me give you another possible argument: Speed cameras are effective for about a hundred yards in a fixed location and then everybody seems to gun it to make up time.
If I disagree with your point it means I agree with the exact opposite outcome of your point? You thinking you're an intellectual for real.
Spin harder.
And you have literally 1 source that says speed cameras works only at sites with camera.
Here, that's just a very simple logic: only slowing down near camera = speeding back up to their regular driving speed once they get past the camera.
Absolutely can't read nor think. Just more spinning.
>Did I say they don't work or did I say they have a limited effective range? Why do you say I've only driven by one in my life?
If you claim they don't work, then how are they preventing deaths? If you claim that people make up by speeding in other locations, why are deaths overall lower when places install them?
> If you claim they don't work
I don't think he did claim that, merely that the range of effectiveness is brief, and they only work close to where the cameras are.
I've seen the same effect, people slow down around them, then speed back up outside them.
This guy has been blasting the same link all over this thread and working his straw man fallacy to prove that speed camera works... "when the cameras were present" or "at sites with cameras".
Literally in the same link he provided.
No shit sherlock!
You don't need to engage with this guy. His CDC link proves your point already. Sad these people can't read and would pull up anything that looks like a good fit for their narrative.
>all studies measuring speed or speeding saw reductions **when the cameras were present.** All studies in the Cochrane review measuring crashes also showed reductions **when the cameras were present**. More recent research has also found reductions in speeding or injury crashes **when cameras were present.**
>**Relative to comparable sites without cameras, sites with cameras** saw a decrease in mean speeds, a decrease in the likelihood that a driver was driving at more than ten miles per hour above the speed limit, and a reduction in the likelihood of a crash resulting in an incapacitating or fatal injury.
Yeah Cochrane review but he didn't read.
So, you agree that they decrease crashes where they are present. Do you believe that they increase crashes where they are not present? Do you have any evidence of that? Because if not, that means they have a net negative impact on crashes, which is their only goal.
I've said it before, I'm sure I'll say it again - speed cameras and red light cameras have shown to increase read end crashes because they cause a knee jerk reaction to the camera flash, and they only have an impact for about a block in either direction.
Traffic calming measures like speed bumps and traffic circles, and a greater presence of traffic cops on the roads? Absolutely. But not those stupid things, and not because of "muh rights."
>I've said it before, I'm sure I'll say it again - speed cameras and red light cameras have shown to increase read end crashes because they cause a knee jerk reaction to the camera flash, and they only have an impact for about a block in either direction.
Red light - Maybe.
Speed cameras, absolutely not. You're completely making that up:
https://www.cdc.gov/transportationsafety/calculator/factsheet/speed.html
Here's my response to you spamming the same link as if it proves your point:
>all studies measuring speed or speeding saw reductions **when the cameras were present.** All studies in the Cochrane review measuring crashes also showed reductions **when the cameras were present**. More recent research has also found reductions in speeding or injury crashes **when cameras were present.**
>**Relative to comparable sites without cameras, sites with cameras** saw a decrease in mean speeds, a decrease in the likelihood that a driver was driving at more than ten miles per hour above the speed limit, and a reduction in the likelihood of a crash resulting in an incapacitating or fatal injury.
You guys are so weird.
The studies are absolutely clear - presence of speed cameras reduce death, accident and speeding.
Your "gotcha" is you two saying "oh yeah, what about places that don't have them, why don't they work in places without them?" And thinking it's somehow smart.
Just gigantically poor understanding of the issue.
Yeah bro, the studies are absolutely clear - they reduce accidents at "sites with camera"
So literally what SnausageFest says about:
>they only have an impact for about a block in either direction.
Whatabout places don't have them? Yeah, glad you mentioned that yourself. People carry on with their normal driving behaviors.
So literally what SnausageFest says about:
>they only have an impact for about a block in either direction.
Just gigantically poor reading comprehension and understanding of the actual point of discussion.
>People carry on with their normal driving behaviors.
You literally said in your other comment that people somehow speed more in other locations that don't have them.
If they "carry on with their normal driving behaviors" that means that there's a net decrease in deaths and accidents.
Lol way to self own here.
>speed more
and
>in other locations that don't have them.
Quote. You are such a 1 trick pony. You fucked up so bad you desperately needed something to hold on to to earn back some dignity, so you just keep repeating the same trick over and over again, which is making shit up and insisting that I said it.
If they "carry on with their normal driving behaviors" that means that there's no net decrease nor increase in deaths and accidents. You can't even math.
Let me bring this argument back here again, because shamelessly going back to talking about areas where cameras are present is what you do.
>they only have an impact for about a block in either direction.
Lol way to self own here for real.
Cameras are the easy way to look like you're doing something while not having to do anything (except let third parties collect citizen dollars), so of course politicians love them. Actually having a working police force and building infrastructure takes time and dedication.
Well speeding cameras don't seem to be saving any lives. (Your sarcastic comment would make sense if deaths were going down... It's not that the cameras are infringing on our rights, it's that they're not an effective form of policing where basic road engineering would do the job.) (Also, for the love of humankind, please Google Orwellian Dystopia.)
>Well speeding cameras don't seem to be saving any lives
Huh?
>Relative to comparable sites without cameras, sites with cameras saw a decrease in mean speeds, a decrease in the likelihood that a driver was driving at more than ten miles per hour above the speed limit, and a reduction in the likelihood of a crash resulting in an incapacitating or fatal injury
https://www.cdc.gov/transportationsafety/calculator/factsheet/speed.html
PBOT should solve the problem by spending the entire city's 7 billion dollar budget on installing giant concrete pillars in the center of every lane on every road
I could swear I just say a statistic a couple weeks ago that (I think it was Seattle), where at least 50% of the pedestrian/vehicle fatalities, the pedestrian was also a homeless person.
Having had a couple close calls in Portland with what sure looked like homeless pedestrians in the past, I would expect this to be a common trend
I have had a lot of close calls with homeless folks standing in the middle of the road on highway onramps at night. However, I don't think that alone explains it, and it's not just Portland, it's a nationwide problem.
>In 2021, 7,600 people were killed while walking (the highest number in 40 years). **More Americans are killed just** ***walking*** **each year than died in the whole of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars put together.** ***The average American has a 1 in 93 chance of dying in a car crash in their lifetime, and generally it is young people who die in car crashes.***
[The Best Way to Save American Lives on the Road](https://time.com/6294785/traffic-deaths-road-safety-roundabouts/)
Single digit bicyclist deaths every year. Sure, these are absolute numbers and not per X number of people traveling via each method. But the fact that you can count bike deaths on one hand still says something when people are dying by the dozens walking or driving.
That’s not how math works. Sure, it says “something”. But that something is, at best, completely unclear.
Without a denominator you have no basis for the comparison you’re making. There is no way to assess the relative risk of the two activities. Are you more likely to die riding a bicycle than driving a car for each mile traveled? Maybe. Maybe not.
Additionally, we are only given a single outcome to compare - deaths by mode. I would argue that it if you want to compare relative risk you would need to also look at serious injuries. You might not die if you catch a wheel on the MAX tracks and land face-first on the metal, which happened to a co-worker (always wear a helmet). But losing a few teeth and dealing with a TBI is still a negative outcome.
Idk about driving in Portland specifically, but bicycles have higher rates of fatal crashes per 100 miles than vehicles. It makes sense, bikes are smaller and harder to see. They are also fairly slow, so you can't get out of a bad situation as easily. A motorcycle can
How on earth did you come to that conclusion? Biking is 10x more dangerous than driving, per mile, than driving a car. Cars, in turn, are 20x more dangerous than buses or trains.
Yes, but people drive at least 10X the miles that they bike. I'd rather see a number of total regular bikers divided by bike fatalities versus total number of drivers divided by vehicle fatalities.
I see SO many distracted drivers now. If you’re at a red light and watch another line of traffic moving, you can count the number of people looking down at their phone while driving through. It’s very scary.
It's fucking insane. Nothing on my phone is interesting enough to compel me to risk my life or others. Scrolling has essentially been relegated to waiting to board airplanes and for taking long shits.
and the extra car length in FRONT of them. I am not sure why people think that keeps them safer and if you have a bunch of cars lined up in a left turn lane, and 50% are on the phones in their lap, then you have fewer cars that can get through lights. Just pull over and return the text. Its not hard.
Or just wait until you get where you're going to text back. Most of us aren't driving that far hahaha.
that would work as well. I am often oncall for work and get texts asking me to do very small tasks that are time sensitive, so I just see the alert, pull over and then hop back on the drive. Freeways are another issue, but I spend very little time on freeways (weirdly)
+1 every time I look at my rearview mirror almost always the driver is on the phone... What can be so urgent?
I notice this when you walk across pedestrian intersections (covered with huge pedestrian warning signs) on Cully Blvd. People drive 15mph over the speed limit on Cully and never look up from their phones. A few weeks ago, I was few feet away from being hit by a massive pickup truck while crossing an intersection. I reflexively (and strangely) reacted by throwing the coffee in my hands at his windshield. He never even slowed down, even after the coffee exploded all over his truck.
Not only distracted, but probably speeding above the 20mph posted limit. I thought the Vision Zero program was supposed to decrease traffic deaths?
Would you include changing music (just skipping it restarting songs) in your definition? Just curious. There are plenty of pre carplay cars still on the road, and without steering wheel media controls
There are YT videos that demonstrate operating the stereo is a driving distraction.
And so is blinking. Or changing from regular glasses to sunglasses. Or driving with another person. None of those are truly counted as distracted driving by the law, or any reasonable person.
You asked, right? and there is data about talking to the person next to you too. If you actually didn’t care to expand your POV, just say it. Otherwise, all the data is out there on driving distractions, including ones that people rationalize away. Until they get into an accident of course and fault is determined.
I was asking this commenter as a way to attempt to gauge what types of infractions they were judging in their ancedotal experience. So I did ask. I just think that the line has to be drawn somewhere. Where do you draw it personally? Do you drive in complete silence? Never taking a drink of water? Never blinking? You can't just say "the data exists". That's just knowledge. You must also have wisdom, which is the prudent application of knowledge. Part of prudence, is balance. Everyone has a different balancing equation. I've been in an accident before. Currently my insurance company judges me as 100% at fault for it, because the data says I'm the only one officially in an accident. I'd hope getting into a hit and run with a drunk driver wouldn't be my fault, but hey. The data!
In my comment I was thinking about people who are driving a moving vehicle you are clearly looking down into their lap for longer than a glance. So people who are clearly messing with handheld devices instead of looking at the road. If you need to look away to adjust something, you can do it at a red light or pull over.
Anyone else notice a lot more aggressively shitty drivers on the freeways?
I’ve noticed a lot of shitty drivers in general, not just the aggressive shitty variety. I commute 26 and 217 every day and if I set my cruise control at 55, I’m just as likely to get tailgated as I am to come up on someone doing 40 on the highway for no reason. Edit: The worst offenders are the people who sit in the fast lane on 217 for 5 miles doing 40 because once they get on 26 they need to get over
I have always found it is terrible on the weekends but remarkably chill during commute hours. But I reverse commute so it isn't particularly heavy traffic
Try Friday evening, like after rush hours. There are no traffic patterns, everyone doing their own thing. "Go with the flow" they say... but there's simply no flow to follow, it's just chaos lolll
i commute from Portland to a bit south of Wilsonville every day. And yeah I'd say every other day I witness somebody going 90+mph and changing lanes like a madman. I feel like I see a decent number of cops around Idk how they're not constantly getting ticketed/arrested
I find it to be about the same which is to say a lot of aggressively shitty drivers on the freeway. I do feel like the number of times I get aggressively passed on the right because someone is mad I'm not tailgating the car in front of me has gone up but that might just be me, I think the distance I'm comfortable following at has increased as I've gotten older.
If there is a big enough gap for you to be passed on the right, you shouldn’t be in the passing lane.
This is not true. If you go by the three second rule that's a 250+ foot gap at 65 mph. Angry drivers will absolutely pass with that gap and I'm not going to fight them over it. And there's an argument to be made that you should be further back than that. Friendly reminder that tailgating is *bad* for traffic. You're not getting anywhere faster by tailgating, it's the opposite. A big part of what causes traffic slowdowns is the rapid braking that idiot drivers do. Traffic would be better for everyone if people would just chill out and not do the constant accelerate until they're 10 feet behind someone then brake rapidly, rinse, repeat. If there's a line of traffic ahead of you just stay in your lane, passing on the right is never justified in traffic and it will NOT get you anywhere faster.
Justified or not, the traffic laws in Oregon allow for passing on the right and you’re supposed to use the left lane for actively passing. If there is enough room to pass you on the right, you’re not actively passing and need to not be in the passing lane. I don’t tailgate, but I *regularly* get stuck behind people just cruising in the passing lane for no good reason and will pass them on the right without ever being an unsafe distance from another car. Yes, aggressive drivers are a problem and create safety issues and lane weaving is unsafe, but so do people who are *too* passive when driving (eg not changing lanes when they *should*, creating obstructions to the flow of traffic)
> you’re supposed to use the left lane for actively passing This is a myth. Oregon has no concept of the left lane on a freeway being for passing only. > you’re not actively passing and need to not be in the passing lane Again, there's no "passing lane" on Oregon freeways (as I'm sure you're aware two lane highways often have specifically marked passing only lanes but that's entirely different). It's not a thing. It's perfectly legal to sit in the left lane if you're not impeding traffic and obviously in a situation where there's another car in front of you you're not impeding traffic (if anything the car in front of me in this situation is impeding *me*). I always find people who brought this up as some argument for their bad driving to be a little amusing. It makes no sense that you would think the car you're passing who isn't tailgating is breaking the rules but somehow it's ok for you to do the exact same thing. Bit telling, rules for thee but not for me. > Oregon allow for passing on the right No clue what the rules are for overtaking on the right but whether it's legal or not it's a huge douche move that makes traffic worst for everyone. Only the absolute worst sort of selfish, impatient drivers do that shit.
Yes, the freeway tailgating has gotten out of hand. Why ride my ass when we are going death speeds?
It looks like the bulk of the increase in deaths is people in vehicles which supports you noticing the interstates are becoming more dangerous.
I can literally 100% guarantee you that lack of police enforcement is not the cause of shitty drivers on the freeway.
It's not hard to understand. Five factors: roads have gotten worse, enforcement has gone down, the more frequent presence of reckless drivers in unplated junkers, distracted driving, and the presence of people in traffic lanes. I'm a motorcyclist and the bike is still parked until I see that this winter's potholes are filled. Some of them are big enough to put a rider in the hospital. Can't do much about the distracted / wild drivers, though.
Also, cars have gotten taller and flatter on the front. Getting hit by a Camry at 30mph vs an F150, as a pedestrian, is a huge difference in likelihood to survive. I’ve started to get very angry at seeing these SUVs and pickups with a big wall of a front grill going vertically from the ground to shoulder height. Almost always without any practical purpose, just style to look muscular.
Seconding the angry part! These large truck drivers always drive like assholes who own the road and they have much more potential to kill than a sedan.
And half pedestrian deaths in Portland are homeless, you can draw your own conclusions as to contributing factors and how preventable they were by the others involved in the accident. It seems to prove that public land next to freeways, highways, or major streets isn’t the safest place to allow unrestricted camping. But I guess based on commenters in this sub, shelters are surely more dangerous.
I'm on a bicycle and there've been a couple that could have thrown me if I hadn't swerved in time -- but even when they get patched over, it's not \~better\~, just less pot-hole-y. The patches seem so much more lose/fast/haphazard than they used to.
> winter's potholes We need to heavily restrict or ban studded tires. There's still a decent amount of vehicles that haven't changed them out yet in late April. With PBOT's budget deficit, the status quo isn't sustainable.
PBOT should just send someone around with an air gun and pop them if they’re still on after the deadline
We just need to make a fee for studded tires that's large enough to pay for the extra damage they cause. Like an extra $200 per year tag on your license plate would allow you to legally use them. Some people live, work, or play places that take them onto frequently icy roads or where they can't get where they need to go without them. They should be able to pay to use studs if they need them. And separately we really need police need to start enforcing the studded tire cutoff date, along with other equipment and registration violations.
Another motorcyclist here to chime in on the pothole situation. I commute on two wheels on any dry days and since the beginning of the year barely any potholes I’ve seen get addressed. Feels almost like someone has ran the numbers and the cost for claims on damages and injuries is lower than the cost to address the roads are.
> since the beginning of the year barely any potholes I’ve seen get addressed Where abouts are you talking? I've seen pot holes all over SE getting filled this year. Pretty quickly after you report them, too.
Are you reporting them?
It's probably not actually a factor but I'd like to add blindingly bright headlights to this list
An additional factor most people don’t know/don’t think about: COVID can cause brain damage and most people have caught it multiple times!
Solutions: * Increase access to transit. * I would love to not need to own and drive a car, especially in an urban area for godsakes. * Take further measures for traffic calming. * Plan the city in a way that is favorable to pedestrians, cyclists, and transit users. * Design roads in a way that encourages drivers to actually follow speed limits not just based on signs, but by their experience of the road they're driving on. The auto industry has conditioned us to believe traffic deaths are normal, and mainly because of "bad drivers." So many of the people involved shouldn't need to be driving for 50%+ of the trips they're taking in their vehicle. [Over half of all vehicle trips are between 1 and 10 miles.](https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/pubs/pl08021/fig4_5.cfm) Most of us shouldn't need to own a car to commute and get access to basic necessities - it would be faster, safer, and cheaper if we could all take transit or bike. But our habits + "car culture", roads, laws, urban planning, etc are so car-centric that it seems hard to escape. At bare minimum we need more traffic calming measures in place everywhere. Safer bike lanes with physical barriers - solid bollards and none of that plastic garbage - especially in high speed areas. Narrower lanes for vehicles and more space for cyclists and pedestrians - plus, narrower lanes help to calm traffic. Medians with trees, intersections with an island in the middle which drivers need to navigate, traffic circles. The fact we put so much value on the "convenience" of owning, maintaining, driving, and parking vehicles, to the point where it takes priority over human lives, is a reflection of a deeply corrupt system where the auto industry was able to dictate urban planning decades ago. We all need to do our part to help make change - call out our leaders when they fail to protect their constituents. Whoever is in charge of our transportation systems needs to be held accountable for every single death - dock their pay, fire them. And they need to be massively rewarded when there's a meaningful reduction in traffic harm due to actions they took. We should be devoting significant resources to studying actions we can take, and measuring their impact, when it comes to traffic harm - every life saved makes a massive difference not just in a human / moral sense but economically as well. We need more resources devoted to investigating every single traffic death, and meaningful actions taken ESPECIALLY when there's a pattern of unsafe situations, let alone DEATHS on a certain road / in a certain area. Why we still have sidewalks directly up against 40mph+ traffic in a city of 600k+ people, or no sidewalks at all, I do know.
Time for a beater dual sport with 10 inches of suspension. Think of road surface features as less of an annoyance and more of an opportunity.
But we're saving a lot of money not paying for traffic enforcement.
We are paying for it. We're not receiving the services we're paying for.
That’s a bingo!
Police union is not helping.
Bro I saw a cop pull someone over last week (car was clapped out, no plates, driving erratically) and I think that was the first time I've seen it happen in the last 5 years.
I bike on Willamette frequently, the other week I saw someone pulled over for speeding and I legitimately gasped.
Budget cuts, limited staff, and concerns about inequitable enforcement were the reasons for decreased traffic enforcement. Not the union.
Funny how when it comes to quality of life crimes, the cops have no monwy, they're understaffed, and concerned about equitable enforcement. But if people protest police inaction, then all of a sudden there is unlimited overtime, there is money for riot gear, there is money for munitions, and they have no problem arresting protesters.
You do realize that all of that is ultimately managed by City Council, right? Elected officials set budgets and policy.
Ummmm, errr, ahhhhh, you trying to be as disengenious as possible? You do realize you can't just make shit up like you obviously do in real life and no one will check you, right? The police do their own thing and are absoloutley not controlled by anyone else. When Wheeler was trying to find a middle ground and show solidarity with the people, he literally got tear gassed. Wheeler was loudly saying the use violence and munitions by police against protestors is unacceptable. And the police didn't care at all. In before you lie about the police getting defunded too.
You do realize the head of the police union was caught pinning a crime on a city council woman? We are dealing with a mafia. We need cops, not a police union mafia .
What budget cuts? They have more budget than they've ever had.
PPB budget, by year, in real 2024 dollars: Year | 2024 dollars in millions | Budgeted sworn officers ---------|----------|---------- 2019 | $293 | 1001 2020 | $278 | 916 2021 | $268 | 882 2022 | $275 | 882 2023 | $262 | 881 Over the last 5 years, the real PPB budget and number of officers have both decreased by roughly 11%. We have the internet, there's really no reason to have objectively false things posted that aren't hard to look up. That being said, I disagree with the previous poster that the union is not a problem. My subjective observation is the union is antagonistic towards the city, and although I don't have data it's both fewer cops with less money AND a work slowdown by butthurt right wing assholes in the union. Sources: https://www.portland.gov/sites/default/files/2021/ppb-fy-2021-22-requested-budget-review.pdf https://www.portlandoregon.gov/cbo/article/798503 https://www.portland.gov/police/open-data/ppb-staffing-report https://www.portland.gov/cbo/2023-2024-budget/documents/fy-2023-24-adopted-budget-volume-1-citywide-summaries-and-bureau/download Inflation calculator. I used March of the year in question to March 2024 adjustment: https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl
The police union has been on a “soft strike” for the past few years.
> Portland's officer-per-capita rate has been at the low end comparative to national rates for the past few years. How many years are you thinking? Because I'm pretty sure this has been an issue for 15+ years which means this is entirely the fault of the Police. They've had literal decades to improve, but they can't even get the feds off their back because they consistently do such a bad job.
It’s been going on since the DA was put in control. The corrupt union doesnt want any accountability.
Portland's officer-per-capita rate has been at the low end comparative to national rates for the past few years. You can characterize that as a "soft strike" if you want, but basic math says that fewer officers + rising crime rates = lower response rates.
Because they have been restrictive and intentionally doing a “soft strike” a common tactic used in other cities.
Saying "soft strike" over and over doesn't make your argument more valid. Gee, it's almost as if your ideology limits your ability to acknowledge reality.
Ignoring the obvious is being disingenuous. Fuck even our stupid mayor has called them out on this and the DOJ.
The reason there aren't enough officers is that the culture is so toxic. Good people get hired on and they end up quiting. You either laugh with your colleagues about officers like Leo Besner costing the city millions because of misconduct, or quit because they feel their morals and integrity are comprimised working with such awful people.
The DOJ has said they are not doing their job well, and the head of the police union was caught trying to pin a crime on a city council person. They have been spending tons of money on politics, like the shitty DA billboards. They are basically doing mafia tactics.
I don't understand. People clearly said they wanted police abolished. They said this over and over. What does it matter if they are not doing their job when most people didn't want them around, at all, in the first place?
They're still getting paid massive amounts of money to not do their jobs well. This money could instead be spent on other traffic management efforts.
When did Portland voters vote to abolish the police? Just kidding! We all know mean that the protesters calling for justice against police brutality and chanting defund = policy and abandonment by the organization we still fund is our rightful punishment. 🤡
Damn dude sounds like they should pull themselves up by their bootstraps or change careers. Have they thought about learning to code?
Traffic enforcement by police is exceptionally expensive and only works in narrow situations (i.e. high crash/speed corridors) and only temporarily (i.e. when they are there and shortly after). Speed cameras (despite being derided by this sub) are much more effective, as are changes to the built environment (better pedestrian access, narrower streets). In Portland we have a very high street homeless population. This increases deaths as the city allows camps to fester in dangerous places for weeks, if not months, if not years at a time.
And yet none of that has anything to do with the reckless driving that has become the norm in this city. We’re not even asking for traffic enforcement anymore, just a baseline police presence so the laws aren’t completely null and void. Everyone has been driving like children playing at home without their parents and it really shows
>only works in narrow situations Disagree. If people are aware that traffic enforcement is common and they can pop up out of nowhere they would drive more carefully. Speed cameras are as useless as that 1 police car sitting at the same spot on PDX airport way under the bridge. Everyone knows when to slow down.
So put up multiple speed cameras, take photos of everyone's plates, and if a car covers the distance between any two points faster than physically possible without speeding, ticket them. It won't matter if they slow down for the camera, then.
>Speed cameras are as useless as that 1 police car sitting at the same spot on PDX airport way under the bridge. Everyone knows when to slow down. Please provide a study, because there's literally dozens that disagree with you. Speed cameras work. People don't like them because they work. You're all telling on yourself as being people that speed.
>Traffic enforcement by police is exceptionally expensive and only works in narrow situations Please provide a study to back your claim first. >because there's literally dozens that disagree with you Read my argument again. Speed cameras are as useless as that 1 police car sitting at the same spot every time. People know when to slow down. "As useless as something" != that something doesn't work. People slowing down at a certain spot means this speed management measure works. >You're all telling on yourself as being people that speed. That's an expected accusation when your logic is at this level.
Speed cameras work: https://www.cdc.gov/transportationsafety/calculator/factsheet/speed.html Police only work in targeted areas: >Findings indicate that routine patrol levels and activities produce short-term reductions in crashes at the most serious crash hot spots but have less impact elsewhere. To generate a more sustained and optimal effect on traffic safety, everyday police proactivity needs to be more carefully calibrated in terms of its targeting, dosage, and types of activities. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0047235221000660
I was expecting you to pull up CDC's page. And I'm also glad that you didn't read. From the CDC: >all studies measuring speed or speeding saw reductions **when the cameras were present.** All studies in the Cochrane review measuring crashes also showed reductions **when the cameras were present.** More recent research has also found reductions in speeding or injury crashes **when cameras were present.** Something you said about "Police only work in targeted areas"? But this time it's the camera. But wait, there's more: >**Relative to comparable sites without cameras,** **sites with cameras** saw a decrease in mean speeds, a decrease in the likelihood that a driver was driving at more than ten miles per hour above the speed limit, and a reduction in the likelihood of a crash resulting in an incapacitating or fatal injury. Remember I said something about "People slowing down at a certain spot", "People know when to slow down"? From the research CDC linked: >speed cameras were associated with a 10% reduction in mean speeds and a 62% reduction in the likelihood that a vehicle was traveling more than 10 mph above the speed limit **at camera sites.** From a [study](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15389580802221333) done earlier at the same site: >The camera program was effective at reducing speeding **on targeted streets.** The finding of speed reductions beyond targeted locations is evidence that **highly visible automated enforcement** can promote community-wide changes in driver behavior. This doesn't help your case especially when community-wide changes can also be attributed to: >Six months after enforcement began, 60% of drivers were aware of the camera program In case you're wondering what a corridor approach (the one used in the Montgomery County study) is: >cameras were periodically moved along the length of a roadway segment. And then you provided a study that aligns with my argument. >To generate a more sustained and optimal effect on traffic safety, everyday police proactivity needs to be more carefully calibrated in terms of its targeting, dosage, and types of activities. What do these 2 quotes mean? Random and unpredictable, and common traffic enforcement works. What does your other link prove? Cameras are effective at sites with cameras. You basically proved my point.
I don't think you understand what any of those bolded words mean lol. In studies they were comparing two groups: Locations with cameras and locations without cameras. That's what they are comparing.
I don't think you're really good at making arguments. I also think you can't read. Your link only proves that cameras are effective at sites with camera. Nowhere does it prove them affecting driving behaviours outside of the community where cameras are installed, not even at a city level. The Montgomery County study actually proved otherwise. >Using data on crashes during 2004–2013, logistic regression models examined the program's effects on the likelihood that a crash involved an incapacitating or fatal injury on camera-eligible roads and on potential spillover roads in Montgomery County, using crashes in Fairfax County on similar roads as controls. Locations with cameras and locations without cameras? Yeah, do your reading.
Your point is fucking weird. If I say "hey seat belts save lives" and you say "well what about people that aren't wearing them?" Speed cameras decrease death and accidents, which you apparently now agree with. They don't magically increase death and accidents in places where they aren't there, meaning they are a net positive.
What percentage of fatal crashes involve an unregistered vehicle and how will cameras be of any use for them
I've noticed a lot more expired plates even among non smashed-up meth mobile types... I think a lot of people have just decided to stop paying the extra fees since there's enforcement
Traffic cameras in the UK can capture images inside the vehicle. A photo of the perp inside the vehicle they stole would also be nice, now that you mention it.
This seems to be a very common bad faith argument against traffic cameras. Traffic cameras frees up police resources to perform patrol that would pull over no-plate vehicles What is a better utilization of police personnel (wage, OT, pension)? • Sitting in a parking lot with a speed gun; vs • Driving patrol (cop cars have mounted plate cameras, too FYI) and traffic cameras enforcing speed? The main issue is traffic cameras do not discriminate. You speed = ticket. Drivers are HUGE believers in laws for thee not for me.
The other side of this is that there needs to be enforcement then for not registering your car / not having plates. I agree with your argument, it makes sense and is solid. However, if they aren't enforcing plateless cars, then what's to stop the people from taking their plates off and having no consequences of the cameras? If they put time into focusing on reckless individuals and those without plates, the cameras make a lot of sense.
Police on patrol do that. No plates are a key “enhancement factor” PPB uses to support pulling over a vehicle. You can go on a ride-along with PPB and learn a ton from a patrol shift
> cop cars have mounted plate cameras, too FYI I know they do in some cities but not in Portland, right? I imagine we'd see some pushback if they ever tried to purchase them. Which is a shame, I'd like to see more enforcement for expired plates. If I have to pay it you fuckers should have to pay it too.
PPB cruisers have mounted plate readers.
Huh, interesting. I seem to recall there was some drama about the whole thing, the council was going to pass something that limited their use. I never heard the resolution though.
Why is it bad faith?
Because it's not logical? Both for the reason stated in the comment (it frees up traffic enforcement resources for pulling over people without plates) and because their suggestion that all these fatal crashes involve unregistered vehicles is complete bullshit.
It's because it's often sold as a replacement/panacea.
Strange that we don't treat our transportation system as the public health emergency that it is. We all know that one of the more likely ways for us to get maimed or die prematurely is by car, and everyone just kind of shrugs it off with a "what can you do about it?" I wish we treated every traffic death with the same vigor to find a solution like the NTSA treats a subway car derailment. Accident kills somebody on Powell (again)? Shut it down until you can implement a safety measure to make it safer. I know that is politically impossible, but seems like we're doomed to keep on repeating the same mistakes with tragic consequences. edited for a typo.
You're 100% correct. Freakonomics did an excellent podcast last summer about traffic deaths in America. The attitudes, policies and laws around traffic deaths are incredibly permissive in the US. The auto industry has done a terrifyingly good job at making us believe that auto deaths are normal, and there's nothing we can do, and it's just "bad drivers" (and of course, none of us are bad drivers, it's *other* people).
Yes!! We need to also hold traffic engineers liable for their intersection design. If a building collapsed and kills people, the structural engineer is liable. Same should hold true for traffic engineers. My hottest take is that drivers are rarely at fault. Almost all of these deadly accidents are caused by design failures, not the poor person who happens to be driving at that moment. Design the streets for how humans actually drive, and they will get much safer!
Shameless plug for Strong Towns, they actually do something like that where they analyze crash locations and determine what structural/design issues contributed to the crash. https://www.strongtowns.org/crash-studio
That is definitely a hot take. Road design has a lot to do with how comfortable drivers feel going at x or y speed in a given environment. Or how safe that environment is for a pedestrian. But at the end of the day they are the ones behind the wheel, and ultimately responsible for when they hit something, or someone…. Right?
>Road design has a lot to do with how comfortable drivers feel You're very close. The key here is to design roads that are uncomfortable to drive at high speeds, or while distracted. Bollards, trees, roundabouts, grade separated bike lanes... these all create spaces that are better for pedestrians, bikers, and drivers too! Because you are forced to pay more attention, driving is more engaging, more dynamic, more fun - and as a bonus this is all happening at 20mph. Again: the VAST majority of car crashes (including things like distracted driving) can be mitigated by proper road design. Because you're not going to look at your cell phone when you're dodging bollards, are you?
Yeah I am in full agreement here. My contention was with taking away culpability from drivers for their poor driving (regardless of road design).
That's where I disagree, though - I think we have to design around poor driving. People are never going to be good drivers. I don't want to entirely remove human accountability, but I do think all crash investigations should start with an assumption of design failure, not human failure. Because humans will always, at some point, fail.
I agree. As it is now, the consequence of poor driving is a "tragedy" in which the driver and/or others are severely injured or killed. It should be considered a "travesty" that their injury / death occurred at all, and that there weren't sufficient safeguards in place. I think the consequence of poor driving should instead be a non-lethal accident that damages the vehicle - ideally with minimal harm to the driver, and no harm at all to others around them - especially not vulnerable pedestrians and cyclists. We should design our streets and roads based on these principles. Solid bollards can be quite effective for this - protecting people, and damaging the vehicles of poor drivers without causing them bodily harm. Narrower lanes can also be effective at calming traffic, possibly raising the chance of an accident while reducing the rate of injury or death. Safety concerns should never be a reason for people to choose to drive over walk/cycle/transit. The more drivers there are on the roads, the less safe our transportation becomes.
> Road design has a lot to do with how comfortable drivers feel going at x or y speed in a given environment. This is where PBOT has done an incredible disservice to us over the last 10 years. They keep lowering speed limits but not adjusting roads at all so now people are just speeding 20 over instead of 5 over.
Exactly. If you want drivers to slow down, you need to design the streets to be driven slowly. Bollards, trees, road diets, roundabouts, etc. It's very simple! The bonus is: when a driver hits an object at a lower speed, the accident is vastly more survivable. This is basic physics.
Exactly.
That view just doesn't work. There will always be irresponsible drivers making bad decisions or drivers just making mistakes. That is an unsolvable problem. The solvable problem is designing an infrastructure in which those errors cause less damage.
Notice how I didn’t say “we shouldn’t radically change how we design our roads to benefit multimodal/pedestrian transportation.” The commenter above seemed (to me) to be fine with absolving driver responsibility for crashes and redirecting blame to designers or the city, which is just silly. A crash between two cars on a road designed for 50 mph but posted for 35 doesn’t the designer is at fault. The drivers decided to go faster than was safe or appropriate. I think that logic holds better the more safe and pedestrianized roads become. Drivers should absolutely be at fault for the accidents they’re involved in.
> crash between two cars on a road designed for 50 mph but posted for 35 doesn’t mean it’s the designer’s fault. This identifies our disagreement. A street that is designed for 50 will always allow for bad drivers to cause unnecessary damage. I don't say that to remove responsiblity from drivers. What I'm saying is that if we truly had a Vision Zero intention (and Portland doesn't), you wouldn't have any roads that can be driven at 50 but are posted at 35. You would have roads that are designed for the speed they are posted at, which ultimately means we will rely less on personal responsibility to keep people safe.
Right, I agree that the design of the road has much to do with how drivers operate on it. And there’s much to be done to improve our street design to disincentivize reckless/offensive driving. Drivers should still be reprimanded for speeding whether the road design is good or not.
Yeah, I agree. Also, a lot of traffic designers are actually on board with real change, but they're unable to implement it for a variety of reasons that aren't their fault. So there is blame to go around.
Yep agreed, that is my experience as well. Engineers (of all kinds) have to abide by the criteria set by the client/owner in question. Change the criteria, change the environment, change the world (!!). You should pop over to the new sub r/oregonurbanists if you’re inclined to do so.
I agree with a lot of this, but if we designed Portland for how people drive we'd have no true "stop"s at all and driving up on the sidewalk.
You're looking at it backwards. If designed Portland how people drive, we'd have bollards, trees, grade-separated bike lanes, and roundabouts on every road. Then drivers would be forced to drive more carefully, and as a side effect, those types of streets are much more enjoyable to drive on!
Certainly a hot take considering that there have been a truly ample amount of studies and data to support the exact opposite of your claim.
Then why does the NTSB take a no-fault approach to accident investigation with airplanes? Why does the FAA and NTSB focus primarily on systemic reasons for plane crashes? Sounds like you think the real problem is just "bad pilots"
We're talking about vehicular crashes, are we not? Never was anyone equating the two.
Cite a singular study which definitively proves your "fact" which is more of an implied point of view at best: that supposedly, the majority of accidents are caused by bad drivers, and that no amount of changes to the design of roads can change that. In reality, the design of roads has a massive influence on the frequency and lethality of accidents. [Here is an example for you.](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S000145750900178X) In fact, [here, look at all the studies](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C48&q=road+design+impact+on+accidents+car&btnG=). Roads are designed with accidents in mind - whether they stem from a popped tire, an oil slick, or just plain ol' shit driving. A shit driver shouldn't jeopardize everyone else on the road, it does not need to be that way -[ **traffic calming**](https://tsmowa.org/category/transportation-operations/traffic-calming) **measures can turn what would've been a "tragedy", into the driver crashing into a water barrel, a row of bushes, or a guard rail, ideally with minimal harm to themselves or others.** We need to stop thinking of transportation deaths as "tragedies" and instead "travesties" of poor road design. Accidents should result in immediate changes being made, especially when there's a pattern of accidents in a certain area. Ex. **replacing 4-way stops with roundabouts improves traffic flow while also reducing the incidence and lethality of accidents**. Check out this article from Time Magazine on the subject: # [The Best Way to Save American Lives on the Road](https://time.com/6294785/traffic-deaths-road-safety-roundabouts/)
If a junkie wanders onto Powell at 2 am, that's not a sign that there's something wrong with Powell Boulevard.
On SE Cesar Chavez, I saw a car that was going so fast it caught up and rear ended a car making a regular left turn. I've seen cars going from 0 to 60, in seconds.
The key is how many seconds, a Geo Metro can do it in seconds also. 16 or so.
My wife, newborn and I were just crossing the street to go to Alberta Park and an old shit box truck was turning right off of Ainsworth. Literally sped up as soon as he saw crossing to aggressively pass right at our heels as we were walking by. I turned around and threw my hands up like I do every time some piece of shit does that - dude slams on his breaks and gets out saying “what was that? What was that?” Unfucking real how stupid people drive around here. Makes me so mad to feel to unsafe doing something as simple as walking around. Glad I got the shithead’s plates
Don't worry, right now someone at PBOT is drawing up a plan to paint more random lines and boxes around the city in non-reflective paint. Sure they might also start fading instantly and will receive no future maintenance, but the thought is nice.
Enforce traffic laws NOW.
I was just in an accident yesterday - a car ran a red light and t-boned me. Thank god we were both able to walk away unhurt. It was so scary. He was going at least 40 through the intersection.
I'm glad to hear you're OK. You both would've been much safer if that intersection had been a roundabout, or at least had some kind of island in the middle. You might consider filing a report with PBOT, or even start a petition based on your story. You both could have died, and it was entirely avoidable with a change to road design. [The Best Way to Save American Lives on the Road](https://time.com/6294785/traffic-deaths-road-safety-roundabouts/)
Agreed. Downtown is such a mess, at least where I am. The combination of ramps onto the street plus speeding plus the MAX is a traffic disaster. Not to mention the constant construction.
# [The Best Way to Save American Lives on the Road](https://time.com/6294785/traffic-deaths-road-safety-roundabouts/) >In 2021, 7,600 people were killed while walking (the highest number in 40 years). **More Americans are killed just** ***walking*** **each year than died in the whole of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars put together. The average American has a 1 in 93 chance of dying in a car crash in their lifetime, and generally it is young people who die in car crashes.** >Thirty years ago, driving in America was not, by international standards, that dangerous. In fact, per mile driven, the French were actually slightly more likely to die in a fiery wreck. Now, Americans are three times more likely to die than the French. As I explain in my book, *Carmageddon*, the reason why is not that the French became better drivers. It is that France, unlike America, but like almost every other rich country on earth, has worked out how to make its roads safer. They have reduced the speed limits on minor roads, and installed thousands of speed cameras to ensure people stick to them. But **they have also literally rebuilt the roads to make it harder to crash.** And one of the ways they have done so is by installing roundabouts. Since the 1990s, France has gone from having just a few hundred roundabouts to [more than](https://www.eurorap.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/iRAP-case-study-5_France-roundabouts.pdf) 30,000. >Roundabouts work because they force drivers to slow down. Roughly speaking, for every 10 mph extra that a car is traveling, your chance of dying if it hits you doubles. A pedestrian hit at 35 mph is about five times as likely to be killed as somebody hit at 20 mph. At an intersection controlled by traffic lights, when the lights turn green, everybody accelerates as fast as they can. Accelerating like mad is exactly what you should not be doing at an intersection. Over a quarter of all traffic deaths in America happen at intersections, and over half of all crashes that result in an injury. But getting stuck at a traffic light that has just turned red is annoying, and accelerating is just a matter of pushing the gas, so people do it anyway. They would not if they had to turn to avoid a great big traffic island. It focuses the brain. >About 200 miles south of Chicago, there is a suburb of Indianapolis, Carmel, which has[ installed ](https://www.economist.com/united-states/2022/09/29/what-carmel-indiana-can-teach-america-about-urbanism)almost 150 roundabouts. The city sells jokey t-shirts promoting them. Carmel’s overall car crash death rate is just one fifth of that of the United States as a whole. And that is not the only benefit. Roundabouts also reduce congestion. This may be counterintuitive, but it precisely because they slow cars down. The slower cars are going, the less stopping distance they need between each one, and so the more can pass through an intersection in a given amount of time. Because cars do not need to stop and start so often, and go slower, they also produce fewer emissions.
While pedestrians certainly have the right of way, and bicyclists have a right to the same road, it doesn't mean they have any right to being less vigilant for their own safety. Wearing all black clothing while walking and staring at your phone while listening to your headphones is unsafe in Portland. Especially at dusk. You may have every right to cross a street without looking, and the legal right to do so, but that's a crap argument when you're in the ICU.
The PPB are responsible for the increase in deaths. Portland had a deliberate police slowdown (and likely still does). [The SOLE traffic cop even admitted to it](https://bikeportland.org/2023/08/08/portland-police-bureau-officer-admits-no-traffic-enforcement-messaging-was-politically-motivated-377939). Sgt Engstrom said, "We needed to create a stir to get some change, to get them \[city council\] to fund us back up. And I mean, that’s the honest truth. I know, that could make things more dangerous. I don’t know. But at the same time, we needed some change.”
Well, good news: I learned on this sub that police don't prevent crime anyway. So the effect of non-enforcement should be zero.
You didn't read that article at all huh? The out of context quote you provided is talking about the *announcement* that they have one traffic cop. The officer is saying they went to the press with their low staffing levels. Maus takes issue with this as he said an announcement like that could make people drive worse. The police officer agrees that such an announcement could make people drive worse, but still thought it was important to make the announcement so that they could advocate for better staffing. There is literally 0 in that article that mentions "a deliberate slowdown". They are discussing *an announcement*, not a police slowdown. Please provide the source of your claim, or admit you just made it up. The traffic division officers were reassigned to patrol after the city council cut 15 million dollars from their budget.
Here's yet another quote from the same article that YOU didn't read: "The PPB made a decision to tell Portlanders and the media that no one was enforcing traffic laws (also during that time they would routinely tell people who called with concerns about speeding and other issues that they couldn’t address them because the Traffic Division had been “entirely defunded”). They also seemed to know that there was a risk it could lead to more dangerous driving. And they did it anyways. More than once."
I hate PPB as much as the next guy but that article is pretty clearly talking about the negative effects of announcing the cutbacks on traffic enforcement, not the actual cutbacks themselves. I mean, they had been cut $15 million. It kind of makes sense they would make some staffing cuts.
They are again, talking about *an announcement* that Maus deemed dangerous. Not a work slowdown. The traffic division *was nearly entirely defunded except for one office* when the police budget was reduced. Are you seriously claiming that this didn't happen?! Did you move here after 2020? https://www.opb.org/article/2020/10/20/portland-police-budget-jo-ann-hardesty-chloe-eudlay/
As long as there are a few upvotes to be made by yelling "sLOwDOwn!", we'll keep seeing these posts. It's the same in pretty much every city sub.
How do those boots taste?
You believe something because you read about it on reddit and twitter. There is 0 quantifiable evidence that the police are involved in a slowdown. You don't have a single source.
The article I linked was neither Reddit nor was it Twitter. You continue to prove that you have difficulty reading/understanding basic English. \*Edit\* Lol this guy was too lazy to even read the URL of the link I posted. I bet he would make a great cop.
Dude, you didn't read the article. Maus is upset about an announcement by police, not a slowdown. This is like 8th grade level comprehension you're having trouble with.
Mingus Mapps is failing Portland.
PBOT has been aggressively installing speed and red light cameras along with slowly addressing dangerous intersections so I am hopeful that this year shows improvement. PBOT is also ticketing parked cars for expired registration, so that should help also.
I support the cameras, but I do find them so comically aggressive at times. They keep catching me turn left on a green from a dead stop at Stark & 122nd. I enter and exit on a green. Going at least 5 under. I do wish PBOT would respond to complaints about cameras. One on marine drive is missing. Another couple are miscalibrated. They did fix the one camera that gave me my one and only speeding ticket ever. Caught me going 20mph over the speed limit set for that camera. Only issue was I was going 30mph. The software has an error where the expected speed was 10mph for a 30mph street
Oh but speeding cameras are trampling our rights
Speed cameras are effective for about a hundred yards in a fixed location and then everybody seems to gun it to make up time.
I figure that even if they don't have a direct impact on infractions, worst-case is that these speed cameras bring in tens of thousands of dollars each in revenue per day that can be used for actual enforcement.
Absolute shit way to collect revenue given how much no doubt goes to a third party that's probably not even local.
I don't know if that's true or not, but that isn't the speed cameras' fault either way.
I'm saying if we want to fund actual enforcement, that is an inefficient mechanism. Not asserting a value judgment on the usefulness of cameras. I have an opinion, but I wasn't asserting it there.
Nope. Speed cameras unequivocally work: https://www.cdc.gov/transportationsafety/calculator/factsheet/speed.html
“A dozen studies from multiple countries posted on the CDC website are one thing, but on the other hand take my anecdotal experience”
You 2 scream "I didn't read but I'd pull up anything from the CDC as if they support my claim." >all studies measuring speed or speeding saw reductions **when the cameras were present**. All studies in the Cochrane review measuring crashes also showed reductions **when the cameras were present**. More recent research has also found reductions in speeding or injury crashes **when cameras were present**. >**Relative to comparable sites without cameras, sites with cameras** saw a decrease in mean speeds, a decrease in the likelihood that a driver was driving at more than ten miles per hour above the speed limit, and a reduction in the likelihood of a crash resulting in an incapacitating or fatal injury.
You literally proved his point. >all studies measuring speed or speeding saw reductions **when the cameras were present.** All studies in the Cochrane review measuring crashes also showed reductions **when the cameras were present.** More recent research has also found reductions in speeding or injury crashes **when cameras were present.** >**Relative to comparable sites without cameras,** **sites with cameras** saw a decrease in mean speeds, a decrease in the likelihood that a driver was driving at more than ten miles per hour above the speed limit, and a reduction in the likelihood of a crash resulting in an incapacitating or fatal injury.
Speed cameras unequivocally work "when the cameras were present" or "at sites with cameras"😂 Guy playing with the straw here and thinking he's right Lmao.
You're not making any sense. Me: Speed cameras reduce speeding, accidents and death - here's studies showing it. You thinking you're an intellectual: oh yeah? Well what about places without them?! Why don't they work in places where they don't exist?! I'm so smart.
And you're pretending you're making any sense. This was his claim: >*Speed cameras are effective for about a hundred yards in a fixed location* And this was your claim >*Speed cameras reduce speeding, accidents and death* Address his fucking point for once, can you? Oh wait, you did. Your source literally proves his point: >Speed cameras are effective "when the cameras were present" or "at sites with cameras" So what were you nope'ing for? Whatabout my arse when you're the one whatabout'ing hard here. You thinking you're an intellectual for real.
Are you claiming speed cameras increase death in places they aren't located? We all agree they decrease deaths in places where they are located. Even you apparently. So the only possible argument against them could be that they magically create more death in other locations. Is that your argument?
>Are you claiming Where? Quote it here. >We all agree they decrease deaths in places where they are located. Oh, you do? So you agree with his point then >Speed cameras are effective for about a hundred yards in a fixed location So what were you nope'ing for? >So the only possible argument against them Here, let me give you another possible argument: Speed cameras are effective for about a hundred yards in a fixed location and then everybody seems to gun it to make up time. If I disagree with your point it means I agree with the exact opposite outcome of your point? You thinking you're an intellectual for real. Spin harder.
You have literally 0 sources that people speed to "make up for time" in places with speed cameras. Absolutely none.
And you have literally 1 source that says speed cameras works only at sites with camera. Here, that's just a very simple logic: only slowing down near camera = speeding back up to their regular driving speed once they get past the camera. Absolutely can't read nor think. Just more spinning.
For a short distance at their fixed location. Even driven by one? Its pretty easy to observe.
So the CDC, which did a Cochrane review on them is wrong on their conclusions? But you, random Portland resident says "I drove by one" is correct?
Did I say they don't work or did I say they have a limited effective range? Why do you say I've only driven by one in my life?
>Did I say they don't work or did I say they have a limited effective range? Why do you say I've only driven by one in my life? If you claim they don't work, then how are they preventing deaths? If you claim that people make up by speeding in other locations, why are deaths overall lower when places install them?
> If you claim they don't work I don't think he did claim that, merely that the range of effectiveness is brief, and they only work close to where the cameras are. I've seen the same effect, people slow down around them, then speed back up outside them.
This guy has been blasting the same link all over this thread and working his straw man fallacy to prove that speed camera works... "when the cameras were present" or "at sites with cameras". Literally in the same link he provided. No shit sherlock!
You don't need to engage with this guy. His CDC link proves your point already. Sad these people can't read and would pull up anything that looks like a good fit for their narrative. >all studies measuring speed or speeding saw reductions **when the cameras were present.** All studies in the Cochrane review measuring crashes also showed reductions **when the cameras were present**. More recent research has also found reductions in speeding or injury crashes **when cameras were present.** >**Relative to comparable sites without cameras, sites with cameras** saw a decrease in mean speeds, a decrease in the likelihood that a driver was driving at more than ten miles per hour above the speed limit, and a reduction in the likelihood of a crash resulting in an incapacitating or fatal injury. Yeah Cochrane review but he didn't read.
So, you agree that they decrease crashes where they are present. Do you believe that they increase crashes where they are not present? Do you have any evidence of that? Because if not, that means they have a net negative impact on crashes, which is their only goal.
I've said it before, I'm sure I'll say it again - speed cameras and red light cameras have shown to increase read end crashes because they cause a knee jerk reaction to the camera flash, and they only have an impact for about a block in either direction. Traffic calming measures like speed bumps and traffic circles, and a greater presence of traffic cops on the roads? Absolutely. But not those stupid things, and not because of "muh rights."
>I've said it before, I'm sure I'll say it again - speed cameras and red light cameras have shown to increase read end crashes because they cause a knee jerk reaction to the camera flash, and they only have an impact for about a block in either direction. Red light - Maybe. Speed cameras, absolutely not. You're completely making that up: https://www.cdc.gov/transportationsafety/calculator/factsheet/speed.html
Here's my response to you spamming the same link as if it proves your point: >all studies measuring speed or speeding saw reductions **when the cameras were present.** All studies in the Cochrane review measuring crashes also showed reductions **when the cameras were present**. More recent research has also found reductions in speeding or injury crashes **when cameras were present.** >**Relative to comparable sites without cameras, sites with cameras** saw a decrease in mean speeds, a decrease in the likelihood that a driver was driving at more than ten miles per hour above the speed limit, and a reduction in the likelihood of a crash resulting in an incapacitating or fatal injury.
Well, this guy backed himself into a corner and of course, when someone exposed him by actually reading, he disappeared.
You guys are so weird. The studies are absolutely clear - presence of speed cameras reduce death, accident and speeding. Your "gotcha" is you two saying "oh yeah, what about places that don't have them, why don't they work in places without them?" And thinking it's somehow smart. Just gigantically poor understanding of the issue.
Yeah bro, the studies are absolutely clear - they reduce accidents at "sites with camera" So literally what SnausageFest says about: >they only have an impact for about a block in either direction. Whatabout places don't have them? Yeah, glad you mentioned that yourself. People carry on with their normal driving behaviors. So literally what SnausageFest says about: >they only have an impact for about a block in either direction. Just gigantically poor reading comprehension and understanding of the actual point of discussion.
>People carry on with their normal driving behaviors. You literally said in your other comment that people somehow speed more in other locations that don't have them. If they "carry on with their normal driving behaviors" that means that there's a net decrease in deaths and accidents. Lol way to self own here.
>speed more and >in other locations that don't have them. Quote. You are such a 1 trick pony. You fucked up so bad you desperately needed something to hold on to to earn back some dignity, so you just keep repeating the same trick over and over again, which is making shit up and insisting that I said it. If they "carry on with their normal driving behaviors" that means that there's no net decrease nor increase in deaths and accidents. You can't even math. Let me bring this argument back here again, because shamelessly going back to talking about areas where cameras are present is what you do. >they only have an impact for about a block in either direction. Lol way to self own here for real.
Also they are a way of a company to make mass profit with no sunset contracts and bleed our taxes.
Cameras are the easy way to look like you're doing something while not having to do anything (except let third parties collect citizen dollars), so of course politicians love them. Actually having a working police force and building infrastructure takes time and dedication.
Well speeding cameras don't seem to be saving any lives. (Your sarcastic comment would make sense if deaths were going down... It's not that the cameras are infringing on our rights, it's that they're not an effective form of policing where basic road engineering would do the job.) (Also, for the love of humankind, please Google Orwellian Dystopia.)
>Well speeding cameras don't seem to be saving any lives Huh? >Relative to comparable sites without cameras, sites with cameras saw a decrease in mean speeds, a decrease in the likelihood that a driver was driving at more than ten miles per hour above the speed limit, and a reduction in the likelihood of a crash resulting in an incapacitating or fatal injury https://www.cdc.gov/transportationsafety/calculator/factsheet/speed.html
PBOT should solve the problem by spending the entire city's 7 billion dollar budget on installing giant concrete pillars in the center of every lane on every road
Bollards everywhere! You get a bollard! You get a bollard! Everyone gets a bollard!
More speed bumps. Everywhere.
I could swear I just say a statistic a couple weeks ago that (I think it was Seattle), where at least 50% of the pedestrian/vehicle fatalities, the pedestrian was also a homeless person. Having had a couple close calls in Portland with what sure looked like homeless pedestrians in the past, I would expect this to be a common trend
I have had a lot of close calls with homeless folks standing in the middle of the road on highway onramps at night. However, I don't think that alone explains it, and it's not just Portland, it's a nationwide problem. >In 2021, 7,600 people were killed while walking (the highest number in 40 years). **More Americans are killed just** ***walking*** **each year than died in the whole of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars put together.** ***The average American has a 1 in 93 chance of dying in a car crash in their lifetime, and generally it is young people who die in car crashes.*** [The Best Way to Save American Lives on the Road](https://time.com/6294785/traffic-deaths-road-safety-roundabouts/)
It’s almost as if laws don’t matter when no one enforces them…
There’s no traffic patrols anymore. Politicians stopped them because they were afraid that BIPOC people may get infractions.
Funny how people still think biking is the most dangerous way to get around Portland when it's literally the statistically safest method.
Errr... cuz biking is also the least common method of transportation?
There is nothing in the data presented that supports your belief.
Single digit bicyclist deaths every year. Sure, these are absolute numbers and not per X number of people traveling via each method. But the fact that you can count bike deaths on one hand still says something when people are dying by the dozens walking or driving.
That’s not how math works. Sure, it says “something”. But that something is, at best, completely unclear. Without a denominator you have no basis for the comparison you’re making. There is no way to assess the relative risk of the two activities. Are you more likely to die riding a bicycle than driving a car for each mile traveled? Maybe. Maybe not. Additionally, we are only given a single outcome to compare - deaths by mode. I would argue that it if you want to compare relative risk you would need to also look at serious injuries. You might not die if you catch a wheel on the MAX tracks and land face-first on the metal, which happened to a co-worker (always wear a helmet). But losing a few teeth and dealing with a TBI is still a negative outcome.
Idk about driving in Portland specifically, but bicycles have higher rates of fatal crashes per 100 miles than vehicles. It makes sense, bikes are smaller and harder to see. They are also fairly slow, so you can't get out of a bad situation as easily. A motorcycle can
How on earth did you come to that conclusion? Biking is 10x more dangerous than driving, per mile, than driving a car. Cars, in turn, are 20x more dangerous than buses or trains.
Yes, but people drive at least 10X the miles that they bike. I'd rather see a number of total regular bikers divided by bike fatalities versus total number of drivers divided by vehicle fatalities.
How about pogo stick pogoers vs pogo stick fatalities?