Senate Bill 395 was introduced earlier this year in the Oregon Legislature in order to address the high number of fatalities of people walking and bicycling. Here are a few who were killed that brings the reality closer to home:

January 2021, a 61-year-old pedestrian was killed while walking across River Road. August 2020, a pedestrian was killed on West 7th Avenue. April 2020, a bicyclist was killed on Royal Avenue. February 2020, Sharon Rene Pritchard, 52, a pedestrian, was killed while crossing River Road. January 2019, Irene Ferguson, 70, a pedestrian, was struck and killed by a car along Hunsaker Lane.

The Governor’s Highway Safety Association calculates that there were 6,590 pedestrian fatalities in 2019. In 2009, 4,302 pedestrians were killed by drivers, representing a 46 percent increase in deaths over 10 years. 

Please contact state Sen. Lee Beyer, 503-986-1706, Sen.LeeBeyer@oregonlegislature.gov, co-chair of the Joint Committee on Transportation and tell him to stop the blood bath on our roads, highways and vote for this bill.

Richard Hughes

Eugene