Did you cop the podcast yet?

In 2019, it’s every Americans’ duty to possess the following: a borderline debilitating fixation on one’s smartphone; the knowledge that Amazon is probably evil but a total inability to stop ordering stuff from it because it’s so convenient; and your very own original podcast.

On Wednesday, the Portland Police Bureau slowly merged into the congested never-ending audio storytelling highway.

PPB dropped three episodes in, potentially, season one of its “Talking Beat” podcast. One of the podcasts focuses on traffic safety issues and featured discussions with Sgt. Ty Engstrom and Officer Chris Johnson. The other podcasts focus on behavioral health issues and recruitment.

In the 36-minute traffic episode, the law enforcement officers discussed what they view as the most pressing dangers on Portland’s roads (distracted driving and speeding), the risk associated with making a traffic stop, the emotional toll the job takes responding to sometimes gruesome scenes, and the clothing choices of pedestrians.

Engstrom said he and fellow officers tried to give drivers leeway if they break traffic laws like running red lights. It depends on the situation, he said, but “everybody’s driving over the speed limit” so the majority of officers try to work with speeders before writing a ticket.

“My goal personally, my goal is not to punish people and impact their lives and their livelihood with a bunch of fines and things like that,” he said. “That's not what I really want to do. I want to have licensed, insured, safe drivers on the road, those three things. License, insurance, safe drivers. So if I can help them understand that and change their attitudes and behaviors with regards to those topics in some other way, then I'm all about that.”

Perhaps the most interesting part of the conversation centered on pedestrians, who Engstrom said must “take their safety into their hands as well,” even if they’re legally crossing a busy street. He said some of that comes down to clothing:

Host: We focus a lot on driving behavior, but there's also the vulnerable road users. There's bicyclists, there's scooters, there's pedestrians. And last year we had a significant number that were either injured or killed. They play a role as well. What can they do to stay safe?

Sgt. Engstrom: So anybody that's not in a car, they're not protected by that steel and metal all wrapped around them, and airbags and such. So they're pretty vulnerable. I'm not going to say that it's all the car's fault, all the bicyclist's fault, all the pedestrian's fault. It's everybody together. Everyone needs to take an effort and take a step towards making our roads more safe, and everyone needs to take their safety into their hands as well.

I ride a motorcycle for a living. I'm riding a motorcycle almost every day in rain and bad weather, in fog, and I ride my motorcycle as if everyone is out to get me. It may seem kind of harsh to say that, but I have to ride that way to make sure that I can go home at night to my family. So I just anticipate, oh I'm sure that person's going to cut me off. I just anticipate it and when it doesn't happen, great. But when it does happen, I'm not surprised by it.

And so I would say the same thing about everybody else, whether you're in a car, on a motorcycle, a bike or walking, you need to just assume that nobody sees you and act that way, and not just step out in the road because hey, it's marked crosswalk. I can be here.

Host: I know. I see that behavior a lot and I think people wear all black, they have the choice to wear all black, but then they dart across the street. And they may have the walk signal and they may have the right to wear all black, but the bottom line is, I can't see you. So I guess you can be right, but you can also be dead right.

Sgt. Engstrom: Yeah. That happened to me this morning on my way into work. It’s pouring down rain, it’s dark, and I was coming along the road. And Saint John’s just a few blocks from our office, and I happened to notice a person walking on the sidewalk. They weren’t trying to cross or anything, but I saw this person dressed in all black and they’re walking. So their arms and legs are moving, but I did not see them until I was almost right next to them, right alongside of them.

The podcast dropped a little more than a week after a 6-year-old girl was struck and injured while crossing a street with her mother in Southeast Portland on Division Street, one of the most dangerous roads in the city. She was hit while crossing at a rapid flashing beacon-marked crossing at about 6 p.m. The suspect drove away, and police said this week they still have no more information about the driver’s whereabouts.

Ten pedestrians have died in 2019 so far. Sixteen died in 2018.

The agency still faces an estimated 120 officer vacancies and the inability to recruit or hire new cadets for those positions. Traffic enforcement, in particular, has been hard hit.

The city’s Vision Zero goal of eliminating traffic deaths by 2025 is intended to rely on engineering changes, educating the public about the dangers of speeding and impaired driving and additional traffic enforcement.

The Police Podcast does take requests. According to the city’s website, you can call and leave a message on the podcast’s dedicated voicemail line at (971) 339-8868 or send an email to talkingbeat@portlandoregon.gov. The agency said it would add monthly podcasts to the website at portlandoregon.gov/police/podcast.

Here’s the traffic episode:

-- Andrew Theen

atheen@oregonian.com

503-294-4026

@andrewtheen

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