QuickTake:

Despite safety programs, the number of fatal and serious-injury crash totals in Eugene in 2024 remained nearly twice as high as they were before the pandemic. The numbers count traffic crashes of all types — those involving pedestrians and bicyclists, as well as those involving only motor vehicles.

A weather-beaten ghostly white bicycle sits at the corner of 13th Avenue and Willamette Street in downtown Eugene.

It’s a memorial for David Minor, marking the spot where he died in a car-bike crash in 2008. To this day his mother, Susan Minor, continues tending flowers at the memorial.

Those close to Minor, such as Josh Goldfarb, have carried on his legacy. In 2021, Goldfarb continued to promote bicycle safety as a co-founder of SHIFT, a local nonprofit bicycling organization, as well as by participating in Eugene’s Ride of Silence — a ride bicyclists take past different fatal bike-crash locations every year in remembrance of lives lost.

“Growing up in Eugene … with David Minor and our group of friends, we all went to high school, middle school, elementary school,” Goldfarb said. The crash that killed Minor happened “right in the middle of downtown on Willamette Street — to have to drive by there all the time, it was a tough thing to process for a while.”

One of the stops along the ride of silence is Minor’s memorial, which serves as a gentle yet grim reminder of the looming risk every bicyclist faces when riding.

Since 2008, the city has led numerous initiatives to prevent crashes like the one that killed Minor. The efforts have sought to reduce not just crashes involving bicyclists, but also to reduce the number of severe or fatal wrecks involving both vehicles and pedestrians on Eugene streets.

Despite those efforts, the number of severe crashes in the city has spiked since the COVID pandemic, according to new data from the Oregon Department of Transportation. 

In Eugene in 2024, there were 13 fatal crashes and 67 crashes involving a victim who sustained a serious injury — defined as severe lacerations, paralysis, broken bones or any other kind of major injury that requires hospitalization.

The numbers also far outpace those in Springfield, which had only two fatal crashes, and 17 major injury crashes, in all of 2024.

There are a number of possible reasons behind this spike in crashes, but experts consistently point to one change: COVID-era driving behavior.

Drew Pfefferle is the transportation coalition coordinator at SAFE Lane, a partnership of various government agencies and advocacy groups working to eliminate fatalities and severe injuries on Lane County’s roads. He says that during the pandemic, with the emptier city streets, people felt freer to drive more aggressively.

“In 2020 and 2021, there were less people on the roads driving,” Pfefferle said. “Unfortunately, those people were driving more recklessly, and that trend kind of carried on to when more normal folks were returning to the road.”

These trends aren’t limited to Eugene; they’re national. In 2019, 36,355 fatal crashes were reported throughout the United States, according to data from the U.S. Department of Transportation. Since then, the number jumped to its highest ever, 43,230 in 2021. The number hovered at just over 40,000 in the most recent recorded year, 2023.

Rob Zako, executive director of Better Eugene-Springfield Transportation, has been working on the issue for more than a decade. There’s no easy “catch-all” solution, he said.

“I use the word epidemic intentionally, and I’m not the only one to do that, but to suggest that this is a public health crisis,” Zako said. “I think this is all a symptom of sort of larger trends in our society that go far beyond transportation, of people feeling more stressed out, more on edge, less connected to the community.”

But there’s work to be done, specifically in education, enforcement and encouragement. To Zako, this could mean initiatives such as the Eugene Police Department’s efforts to combat speeding. Pfefferle advocates educational initiatives such as drunken-driving prevention campaigns.

For the city of Eugene, it meant the Vision Zero resolution.

The resolution, passed by city councilors, declares that “no loss of life or serious injury on Eugene’s transportation system is acceptable.” The resolution came with plans to reach that goal.

A significant part of the plan was dedicated to renovating street locations that had the highest rate of severe injuries and deaths. Those included a revamp of the intersection of River Road with Irving Road and Hunsaker Lane, and buffering bike lanes on 24th Avenue. Both areas have a history of crashes.

“The Vision Zero Action Plan details the city’s priorities when it comes to increasing traffic safety, and we continue to work through the list of problem spots,” said Marion Suitor Barnes, the public affairs manager for the city’s Public Works Department. “However, there is no substitute for careful and safe driving.”

The city will continue to lead initiatives to prevent these deaths, she said, such as a planned roundabout on Division Avenue, as well as reassessing its high-crash corridors every five years. 

Until then, Susan Minor will continue to brave the summer heat and water the flowers surrounding David’s ghost bike, as she has done for the last decade.