A serious injury collision Tuesday evening has resulted in a citation for the bicycle rider. Police say the rider was under the influence of alcohol when the collision occurred.

It happened around 6:15 pm on North Vancouver and Tillamook. We first saw it reported via Twitter and then got an email from a reader who lives and rides nearby.

“I was getting off the bus when it happened,” the reader shared with us. “The guy was not moving at all although he seemed to be alive… I heard the driver saying she didn’t see him. It’s possible the bus blocked his view of traffic and he tried to dart across Vancouver.”

Tillamook is an east-west neighborhood greenway that is a busy feeder route onto Vancouver — especially during peak commute hours. There is no traffic signal at the intersection. Users of Tillamook have a stop sign and people going south on Vancouver (a one-way street) have the right-of-way. Vancouver also has yellow “Bikes XING” caution signs on both sides of the street at this location.




We asked the Portland Police Bureau for more information on the collision. They said the bicycle rider was transported to a nearby hospital with serious but non-life-threatening injuries. PPB Public Information Officer Sgt. Christopher Burley says their preliminary investigation shows that the bicycle rider failed to stop at the stop sign and “collided with a van traveling through the intersection.” When officers visited the rider at the hospital they issued him a citation for bicycling under the influence of intoxicants. (For more on bicycling under the influence, read this Bike Law 101 article.)

Sgt. Burley also said a TriMet bus was nearby and investigators are reviewing its on-board video which may have captured the collision.

The reader who reported the crash to us said he lives on Tillamook and has noticed a significant uptick in traffic. “Traffic has been increasing a lot,” he said. “I’ve worried what this would mean for bicyclists.”

UPDATE: A reader happened to be on the bus that was at the intersection when the collision occurred. Here’s how he describes what he saw:

The cyclist was traveling west. The bus was half pulled over partially blocking south bound traffic in the vehicle lane. The van entered what is effectively an unmarked parking lane to pass the bus. At the time of the crash the van was fully in the vehicle lane. The cyclist line of site of vehicle traffic in the lane would have been obstructed by a stopped bus.

— Jonathan Maus: (503) 706-8804, @jonathan_maus on Twitter and jonathan@bikeportland.org

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bicycling under the influence, collisions, n vancouver avenue