Oregon City Personal Injury Lawyers Kaplan Law HomeClackamas County Accidents
Clackamas County is a geographically diverse county. The northwest contains many Portland suburbs like Lake Oswego, Gladstone, and Happy Valley. In contrast to the densely populated northwest, the county’s eastern region has towns like Rhododendron, Government Camp, and Three Lynx Village, where populations are measured in the tens of hundreds rather than tens or hundreds of thousands of people. This means that some of Clackamas County’s highways traverse this variety of settings, offering users views of the Portland metro area, scenic canyons, and more.
One of these roads -- Oregon Highway 213 -- is also home to a heightened risk of harm. A few years ago, KGW published a list of the “10 most dangerous roads in Oregon.” Highway 213 at Beavercreek Road (in Oregon City) ranked third. Despite seeing fewer than 25,000 vehicles daily, the intersection was home to more than 90 crashes, with 51 causing at least one injury.
The dangers of Highway 213 are not just in densely populated areas like Oregon City. Headlines reveal a fatal motorcycle-versus-SUV collision near Molalla (a rural area roughly halfway between Oregon City and Salem) in early 2025 and, in a 72-hour period during late November 2024, two crashes -- one deadly -- near Mulino (another rural town about 5 miles north of Molallo.)
In July 2023, ODOT installed a roundabout at the intersection of Highway 213 and Toliver Road in the Molalla area, which the agency identified as a “high-crash area.”
Highway 213 is not alone in Clackamas County when it comes to a reputation for crashes. Highway 211, which carries travelers from Woodburn (just west of Clackamas County) to the central part of the country and eventually to Sandy in the north, also has a lengthy history of severe or fatal accidents. ODOT identified an eight-mile stretch of Highway 211 between Molalla and Colton as a “Safety Corridor” in the fall of 2021 because of “high crash rates.” Specifically, the area had a rate of serious and fatal crashes that was 166.5% of the statewide average “for similar roads,” with the stretch logging 27 crashes and two fatalities per year on average.
During 2024, ODOT installed “new signage, striping, lighting, and rumble strips.”
Many of these serious or fatal crashes, whether on Highway 211 or 213, involve drivers who, for initially unknown reasons, cross the center line of the rural, two-lane highway and collide head-on with oncoming traffic.
When the Road Itself Is Partly to BlameIf another driver is the sole cause of your Clackamas County crash, seeking accountability and appropriate compensation generally involves taking on a private individual, their auto insurer, and possibly the driver’s employer.
Sometimes, though, the reasons for your accident go beyond just a negligent driver. Instead, your crash may have arisen due to the road itself. If the facts and evidence of your case indicate that the highway was in an “unreasonably dangerous condition,” it is possible that the entity responsible for that road bears some (or all of the) responsibility for the crash. These unreasonable hazards can encompass a variety of scenarios, from a fallen stop sign that was not reinstalled in a timely manner to allowing vegetation near an intersection to become overgrown and obscure drivers’ sightlines to a failure to make timely repairs to known problems like a massive pothole or a damaged/downed guardrail.
When these happen (and you endure injuries as a result) along a state highway, that could indicate the state bears some culpability for your damages. Be aware that when this happens, your case proceeds under a special procedure -- one spelled out in the Oregon Tort Claims Act. The OTCA imposes a series of special process rules that do not apply to cases against private entities and people. These rules can make it more challenging to bring a case to trial. For example, an injured driver/passenger suing the state under the OTCA must file a "Notice of Claim" with the government. The deadline for filing this notice generally is shorter than the deadline for filing a civil complaint in court against a private person or business. If your accident did not involve death, the OTCA deadline typically is 180 days from the date of the injury. Many comparable claims against private defendants allow two years to file.
Whether your case demonstrates a need to pursue a private person, an auto insurer, or the Oregon state government, you need powerful and effective legal representation. The Oregon motor vehicle accident attorneys at Kaplan Law LLC have a lengthy history of successfully representing people injured in Clackamas Count and throughout Oregon and Washington State. We specialize in tackling tough and complex cases and delivering the accountability our clients seek. If you have questions, call us at (503) 226-3844 or contact us online today.
Resources:The 10 most dangerous roads in Oregon
Oregon 213: Roundabout at Toliver Road
