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Two vehicle crashes this week in Portland showcase bizarre driving decisions and conduct.
One of the crashes involved a woman turning onto an onramp, running into a sign, and then hitting a tent set up by the side of the onramp, injuring a woman sleeping inside. The other crash, which halted freeway traffic for hours on Halloween night, involved a driver who provided a fake name and then fled the hospital before police officers were able to reach him.
In the early morning on Nov. 2, a vehicle veered off of a freeway on-ramp in Southeast Portland by "[failing] to negotiate a curve in the road," hit a road sign and ended its trajectory by striking a tent set up on a grassy patch alongside the ramp, seriously injuring one of the three people asleep inside.
According to a release by the Portland Police Bureau, the driver of the vehicle, 20-year old Shayla Valdez, was turning onto the Interstate 205 northbound ramp from Southeast Division Street. Valdez was cited for careless driving but was not impaired, the release said.
The woman who was struck inside of the tent is being treated at a hospital and is in stable condition, but suffered severe injuries to at least one leg.
Two days prior, on Oct. 31, police responded to southbound Interstate 5 near North Skidmore Street at roughly 5 p.m, where a semi-truck and a Freightliner dump truck were found damaged. The dump truck was leaking fuel, prompting officers to temporarily shut down the highway.
According to the police release, the driver of the semi-truck cooperated with officers following the crash.
The driver of the Freightliner truck seemed to cooperate, too – up until officers tried to meet him at the hospital after he had been transported by ambulance, and found that he had fled. He also provided a fake name, the officers later learned.
The picture of the Freightliner driver provided by police show a man sitting upright in an ambulance stretcher, wearing an Eddie Bauer shirt and a black hat with white lettering. He appears to be alert.
