McMinnville, OR Auto Injury Lawyers Kaplan Law HomeHighway 99W Accidents in Yamhill County
Yamhill County is home to many amazing sights, from beautiful horse farms and ranches to breathtaking vineyards to the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum in McMinnville. Regrettably, Yamhill County also is home to some very dangerous stretches of highway.
Each year, ODOT publishes its "State Highway Crash Rate Tables." Those reports are telling, as they reveal just how frequently collisions occur per million vehicle miles traveled. Except for a few egregious trouble spots near the center of downtown Corvallis, two of the more treacherous areas are in Yamhill County.
One is a stretch of 99W in Newburg. The more hazardous of the two, however, is in McMinnville. Going by various names -- McDougall Junction, McDougall's Corner, McDougal Corner, etc., it is the area where Highways 99w and 18 meet and is a spot where an especially high number of crashes take place each year. In six of the last eight years, the area posted a crash rate of 8.8 or higher. For comparison, Highway 99W in Tigard carries 2½-3 times as many vehicles as the above-referenced area in McMinnville, yet has only averaged about 1.7-5.2 crashes per million miles traveled.
In 2022, 1st Congressional District Representative Suzanne Bonamici said that "McDougall's Corner, has been a dangerous stretch of road for years."
ODOT is designing improvements along this stretch of 99W. The changes include installing a roundabout at the intersection of highways 99W and 18, closing a connector road onto 99W, and realigning the intersection of 99W and NE McDougall Road "to make it easier for drivers to see oncoming traffic."
ODOT plan for the construction to take place in 2026 and 2027.
The changes hopefully will make this part of Yamhill County safer and reduce the number of serious and fatal crashes take occur each year in this area.
What to Do After a Fatal CrashThe loss of a close family member leaves an enormous emotional hole in the survivors' lives... and does extensive additional damages beyond the emotional toll. If a lost loved one was a primary or sole income earner, their loss may place the surviving spouse and children at immediate risk of financial insecurity.
Massive medical bills will only worsen that problem. An independent nonprofit that studies hospitalization costs found that, for COVID patients that required complex care like treatment in the ICU, the average charge amount was $261,000 and the median was $196,000. While those patients were people with COVID, a stay in the ICU after an auto accident would likely yield similar bills. A person who remained in the ICU for 1-2 weeks before succumbing to their accident injuries easily rack up costs well into the six-figures.
Getting justice means accomplishing several goals, including holding the negligent parties accountable. It also, however, means saving your family from a future of financial instability or poverty due to lost income and medical bills.
Achieving that end -- justice -- often can involve many avenues. It could include pursuing insurance claims (and taking on insurers that often are reluctant to pay you what you are owed). It could also involve a civil lawsuit. With the latter, surviving family members should understand that not just anyone may pursue a wrongful death lawsuit. The law in Oregon only allows the personal representative of the deceased's estate to sue for the benefit of the surviving family members. That means that, before anyone can go to court and file a wrongful death complaint, they first must open a probate estate in the circuit court and be named as the representative of the estate.
In other words, it often can be a complicated and challenging process. The best path forward as you work to heal is to retain experienced counsel to handle the legal affairs. The zealous yet thoughtful Oregon auto accident attorneys at Kaplan Law LLC understand what a profoundly personal yet legally important time this. To get the advice, answers, and advocacy your family needs, call us at (503) 226-3844 or contact us online.
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