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Four fatal crashes over Christmas Eve and Christmas Day have cemented 2023 as the deadliest year for Portland traffic in three decades.
Officials with the Portland Bureau of Transportation say the four deaths Dec. 25 raised the year’s total to 65, more than the 64 in 2021 or the 63 last year. Those totals had marked the biggest death tolls since the 1990s.
“This is the highest we have had in any single calendar year in at least three decades,” said Hannah Schafer, PBOT’s communications director.
The death toll marks a third consecutive year of failure for Vision Zero, an ambitious and expensive 2016 policy that included a goal of eliminating traffic deaths and serious injuries by 2025. The record also comes seven months after the Portland Police Bureau reinstated its traffic division, deploying 14 officers to crack down on speeding and drunken driving. Officials had hoped that an increased police presence would be the missing ingredient to reduce fatal crashes. It wasn’t.
(The Police Bureau today listed a higher figure of traffic deaths than the Transportation Bureau: 71. That’s a perennial discrepancy because police include fatal medical events, like heart attacks at the wheel, while PBOT doesn’t.)
Sarah Iannarone, executive director of The Street Trust, a traffic safety advocacy group, decried the deaths as a result of insufficient action.
“Unsafe streets affect everyone,” Iannarone said. “Our government leaders and law enforcement agencies have failed to keep them safe for all, and as a consequence, the public risks death using them every day to get to our jobs, schools, and to meet our vital daily needs. No amount of death should be acceptable on our streets, and yet Portland continues to see annual increases. Significant safety infrastructure investments paired with transformative leadership from across bureaus and jurisdictions are essential to begin turning the myth of ‘Vision Zero’ into reality for our residents.”
The four fatal crashes over the Christmas holiday began with a single vehicle crash near North Columbia Boulevard and Oregonian Avenue that killed an 18-year-old passenger. The 18-year-old driver, Eleice G. Muldoon, was charged today with negligent homicide, second-degree manslaughter and DUII.
Shortly after midnight on Christmas morning, police discovered a hit-and-run on Southeast Stark Street at 106th Avenue. Adding to the Dec. 25 tally were a single vehicle crash on Southwest Barbur Boulevard that killed the driver (speed was a factor, police said) and a two-vehicle collision on Southeast 122nd Avenue just south of Powell Boulevard.
All four of those deaths appear to have occurred on what Portland officials deem “high-crash corridors” where most wrecks occur. Those busy streets have been known to city leaders for years, but officials have failed to reduce the deadly speeds that are the linking factor in most traffic deaths.