Car Accidents in Portland: 2023 Data and How a Claim Works

The federal Fatality Analysis Reporting System records every fatal crash with its location, time, light condition, manner of collision and the people involved. For Portland in 2023 it records 64 fatal crashes and 69 deaths, a figure that places Portland near Denver and Sacramento and that is high for a city with Portland's reputation for walking and cycling infrastructure.

The data points east and after dark. Forty-three of the 64 fatal crashes happened in the dark, and 38 of those were on lighted streets, which in Portland means the wide arterials of East Portland, the area east of 82nd Avenue annexed in the 1980s and built on a suburban grid of long, straight, multi-lane roads. SE 122nd Avenue, SE Stark Street and SE Division Street, all on the city's own high-crash network, head the list, and they are all East Portland arterials.

Twenty-six of the 64 crashes involved a pedestrian or cyclist, 41 percent. Forty-one were coded as not a collision between two motor vehicles in transport, covering pedestrian strikes and single-vehicle crashes; 16 were angle collisions and 4 were rear-end. Twenty-nine were at or related to an intersection. Saturday and Sunday had 12 fatal crashes each, with Tuesday at 11 and Wednesday, at 4, the quietest day.

The data codes each crash to a trafficway as the state reports it. The roads with the most fatal crashes in Portland in 2023 were:

• SE 122nd Avenue, 4 fatal crashes, the north-south East Portland arterial.
• SE Stark Street, 4 fatal crashes, the east-west arterial through East Portland.
• US-30, 4 fatal crashes, as coded by the state, which includes the St. Helens Road corridor in Northwest Portland.
• US-26, 3 fatal crashes, as coded, which includes Powell Boulevard through Southeast Portland.
• SE Division Street, 3 fatal crashes.
• I-5, 3 fatal crashes.
• N Marine Drive, 3 fatal crashes, the industrial road along the Columbia.
• NE Columbia Boulevard, 2 fatal crashes.

Portland's central neighborhoods have the dense grid, the slow streets and the cycling infrastructure the city is known for. East Portland does not. Its arterials, 122nd, Stark, Division, Powell, Glisan, Foster, were built to suburban standards before annexation: five lanes, 35-to-40-mile-per-hour limits, long gaps between signals and crossings, bus stops on both sides, and apartment complexes and strip commercial along them. Residents walk and take transit in large numbers, and they cross those roads at night. The city's own high-crash network includes these streets, and the 2023 fatal crash data shows the pattern continuing.

For a claim, Oregon's insurance structure changes the early stages. Every Oregon auto policy must include personal injury protection, which pays medical bills and a share of lost wages regardless of fault from the first day, and uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage at least equal to the liability limits, which means a Portland driver or pedestrian hit by an uninsured driver has a source of recovery that drivers in Ohio or Colorado may lack. Oregon is not a no-fault state, so the claim against the at-fault driver proceeds alongside PIP without a threshold.

Oregon's 51 percent bar means a pedestrian assigned more than half the fault for a night crossing recovers nothing, so the fault split is contested with the same evidence as elsewhere: event data, cameras, lighting and witnesses. The road's ownership matters for a design or lighting claim: 122nd, Stark and Division are the city's; Powell is US-26 and St. Helens Road is US-30, both ODOT's; a claim against any of them requires notice within 180 days.

Suppose you were crossing SE Stark Street at a marked crosswalk at 7 p.m. in November, after dark, when a driver in the inside lane, whose view was blocked by a bus stopped in the outside lane, struck you. You suffered a fractured tibia and a shoulder injury, with $61,000 in medical bills and ten weeks off work. The driver carried Oregon's minimum.

Your own auto policy's PIP paid the first $15,000 of medical bills and a share of your lost wages within weeks, without any fault determination. The driver's insurer accepted that its driver struck you in a crosswalk but assigned you 30 percent fault for stepping out from behind a bus; under Oregon's rule that reduces the claim by 30 percent, and the insurer's interest was in pushing it toward 51. Oregon law requires a driver to stop for a pedestrian in a crosswalk and prohibits passing a vehicle stopped at a crosswalk, and the TriMet bus's forward camera, requested through TriMet within the week, showed you were well into the crosswalk when struck. The assignment was reduced to 10 percent.

The driver's $25,000 limit was paid. Your own underinsured motorist coverage, which Oregon requires at least at the liability limit, paid the balance. All figures are hypothetical; the night-time crosswalk strike on an East Portland arterial with a bus in the picture is a recurring Portland claim.

The steps are the same as anywhere, with several specific to Portland and Oregon.

• Call 911 and get the Portland Police report number; crashes on I-5, I-84, I-205 and US-26 may be handled by the Oregon State Police, and the report comes from whichever agency responded.
• Open a PIP claim with your own insurer immediately; Oregon requires PIP on every policy and it pays medical bills from the first day regardless of fault.
• Photograph the scene, the lighting, the crosswalk and any cameras on businesses, signals and TriMet buses; TriMet bus cameras capture many East Portland crashes.
• Get medical care the same day; PIP pays for it and a gap in treatment is used against the claim.
• Check your own policy's uninsured and underinsured motorist limits; Oregon requires them at least at the liability limit, and higher limits are available.
• If a city street, an ODOT highway, a TriMet vehicle or any public body contributed, calendar the 180-day notice deadline under the Oregon Tort Claims Act.
• Do not give a recorded statement to the other driver's insurer; Oregon's 51 percent bar makes any admission about your own conduct costly.

Oregon is a fault state with mandatory first-party coverage. Every Oregon auto policy must include personal injury protection, which pays medical bills and a share of lost wages regardless of fault up to the policy's limit, and uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage at least equal to the liability limits. Oregon's minimum liability coverage is $25,000 per person, $50,000 per accident and $20,000 for property damage. The claim against the at-fault driver proceeds alongside PIP with no injury threshold, and the PIP insurer may seek reimbursement from the recovery under Oregon's rules.

Fault follows modified comparative negligence with a 51 percent bar: you recover if you were 50 percent or less at fault, reduced by your share. The injury deadline is two years from the crash. Claims against a public body, including the City of Portland, Multnomah County, the Oregon Department of Transportation and TriMet, require written notice within 180 days of the injury under the Oregon Tort Claims Act, one year for a wrongful death claim, and are subject to damage limits.

Crashes in Gresham, Beaverton, Hillsboro, Lake Oswego and the rest of the metro follow the same Oregon rules; crashes across the Columbia in Vancouver are governed by Washington's rules, which differ, including pure comparative negligence and a three-year deadline. Workers' compensation for a crash on the job runs through the Oregon Workers' Compensation Division with a two-year claim deadline.

A Portland crash claim is, more often than not, an East Portland arterial crash after dark, frequently involving a pedestrian or cyclist, under Oregon's rules, which provide PIP and UM coverage on every policy but apply a 51 percent bar and a 180-day notice requirement for public bodies. The questions to answer early are what the lighting and camera evidence shows about the fault split, what the PIP and UM limits are, and whether a public body is involved. Most personal injury attorneys work on contingency.

Ask Legal Matters is a free claim-review request service, not a law firm. Requests may be shared with independent attorneys and legal services partners who handle inquiries in Oregon, and an attorney must evaluate the facts before anyone can say what the claim is worth. If you were hurt in a crash in Portland, you can request a free claim review.

• Portland, Oregon: local injury guide, court and deadlines
• Car Accident Claims in the United States: The Complete Guide
• Motorcycle Accident Claims: Overcoming Rider Bias and Recovering Fully
• Pedestrian Accident Claims: Rights, Fault and Compensation
• Electric Scooter Accident Claim: Who Pays and What Applies
• E-Bike Accident Claim: What Is Different From a Bicycle
• Distracted Driving Accident Claim: Proving Phone Use
• Concussion Car Accident Settlement: Proving an Injury Scans Miss
• What Information to Exchange After a Car Accident (and Not Say)
• Hit by an Uninsured Driver? Where the Money Comes From

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