Tractor driver seriously hurt in crash on Hwy 26
SANDY, Ore. – A 25-year-old Sandy man was seriously hurt Friday afternoon when an SUV crashed into the tractor he was driving on Highway 26.
It happened about two miles east of Sandy at around 4:15 p.m.
Police said 32-year-old Christopher Huntley of Portland was driving westbound on the highway when the vehicle in front of him suddenly swerved to avoid a slow-moving tractor. Huntley tried to swerve as well, but couldn’t avoid hitting the tractor.
The crash forced the tractor off the highway and pinned the driver, 25-year-old Matthew Grassl, underneath. Firefighters pulled him out from under the wreckage. Grassl was taken by LifeFlight helicopter to Legacy Emanuel Medical Center in Portland.
Police said Grassl had borrowed the tractor and was driving it to his home in Sandy.
Huntley was not hurt in the crash.
Police are asking anyone who witnessed the crash, including the first driver who swerved to avoid the tractor, to call Trooper Scott McLeod at 503-731-3020, ext. 406.
If you look at the picture you see where the tractor is and was. It appears the tractor was off the road when it was hit. Does anyone else see this?
Following too close.
This could turn into a sad country music tractor song
following too close at highway speed leave very little time ti react SAFELY in a moment of hazard.back off people ,, you will get there just as soon ,even if you hold a hundred yard interval..
@jeepboyx9 Yeah.... I haven't seen anyone actually keep a corect following distance in a long time.
Lower the speed limit to 5 MPH and save lives
People are SO impatient when they see a tractor. Calm down, it's not like a few extra mins are going to kill you. Yes, it's not fun being stuck behind a tractor, but the tractor driver will try and find a place to pull over and let you off. Plus, they usually aren't on the main road for too long. People need to take a chill pill.
@pipsqueak YEP!
Where I live in Yacolt, we have them on the road ALL THE TIME! Â Very rural, 2 lane road, with lots of hills & sharp curves.. Just wait a few seconds- It takes less than a minute to get to a straight place in the road, safe to pass. Also tractor drivers out here are almost always very considerate. They pull off as soon as there's a safe spot on the road to do so.
This "hurry, hurry, rush, rush, me first, I can't spare ten seconds" world we live in is really becoming something awful! Â
All of our modern conveniences, designed to do things so much faster, to give us more free time.. You can get a full meal at a drive thru in two minutes! Seems to me people had a LOT more free time, time to read, time to talk to their kids etc.. a hundred years ago. We have more crap to "help us" do things faster and far less time! Â
People are so used to getting things RIGHT NOW- they have far less patience, that's not a good thing..
This wreck should not have happened. Â If a driver is looking far enough ahead, one will see the slow moving vehicle and act accordingly. Â Folks are too much in a hurry. Â Most wrecks are avoidable. Stop tailgating, Â get off the phone and stop texting.Â
This is actually really sad because I went to school with this guy's sister and I know that their other brother was killed in a car accident several years back. How traumatic for their family. Hope he's okay.
@s.c.h. Chris was killed by a drunk driver. Great kid, very sad.
I am just wondering if anyone saw the crash site. I did and I know the young man on the tractor. First let me say this is a rural area and farm equipment is common. Second, there is room to be for the most part off the road with plenty of room to get over to the left lane and pass safely. AND I know Matt would be very aware of his suroundings.
Now for the van that hit him. I went by from both direction and the van was straight in the road and at first I thought they were parked to render assistance because you could see no damage on the drivers side. It wasn't until I was right up on the van that I could see the airbags had gone off. The van was also about 100 ft from where the tractor was in ditch. At the point I saw the tractor I knew it wasn't good but I also didn't know who was on it. About 45 minutes later I had to go back into Sandy.They had brought out portable lights and I was passing on the right side of the van. It was pretty ovious to me that the van just caught its right side with the tractor. I bit more than a side swipe but not much. It look like either the drive thought they could make it around or they weren't looking and at the last minute saw the tractor and reacted to late.
@Shannon MÂ
I am glad to hear from someone who knows him and saw the scene.Â
thank you
have you heard any more?
This was rush hour on a Friday night, in good weather. Traffic was heavy. Dude shouldn't have been driving a slow moving vehicle on a highway at rush hour. The poor guy set himself, and the other guy, up.
I feel sorry for him. Hope he recovers.
@JayTeeÂ
Not rush hour. While 4:15 p.m. may be rush hour in big cities, it is not east of Sandy when you're going westbound. Â If there is heavy traffic, you're going to see it going eastbound up the mountain.
The traffic you see in the pictures/video is because of rubber necking and lane closures because of the accident, not because it was "rush hour".
@JayTeeÂ
No, the guy who hit him set himself up by following the vehicle in front of him too closely and not paying attention to his surroundings. Had he done both, he would have had more than enough time to see the tractor and get over into the other lane. He specifically said there was a car in front of him, which means had he been following at an appropriate distance, he would have seen the tractor.
That tractor has every right to be on the road, the same as the rest of us. What if it had been a vehicle that needed to go slow for a period of time (or just someone driving slow)? Or someone slowing down to make a turn? Seems like he would have hit any of those as well since he was not paying attention.
The blame lays solely on the driver who couldn't follow the rules of the road.
@JayTee Exactly. Trailer the damned thing.
Is it legal in OR to drive a utility tractor on a 4 lane, divided highway?
I know that it rural areas, it's permitted on a 2 lane intrastate (example, hwy 99 through McMinville), so long as it's daylight and the tractor has hazard placards (reflective triangle). I thought the law was that any vehicle on a 4 lane interstate that could not acheive the posted speed limit was required to have a pilot car. Anyone know?
Good, bad, right or wrong, I don't know that I'd be at all comfortable driving a utility tractor on a 55mph, 4 lane divided highway, in a lane of traffic. Even with 'travel' gearing, those things top out at around 40mph.Â
@MarkKpic US-26 isn't an Interstate Highway.
@knottriel @MarkKpic I misspelled a few words too.Â
@MarkKpic
That's why you go around a slow moving vehicle. There are 4 lanes through much of that area and pull outs every so often when there is not. If you pay proper attention, give an appropriate safety buffer, don't speed, etc. then there isn't going to be a problem. Unfortunately, few people do that anymore. Instead they follow way too closely and tend to go too fast.Â
When you notice that you're closing up on a vehicle fast, that means you either move to another lane or you slow down.
When we're driving on 26 we find that when we are doing the speed limit, we're the slowest vehicle around by at least 10-15 mph. People fly through there like there aren't tractors, deer, semi trucks, vehicles that don't handle the incline well, etc.
And yes, it is perfectly legal.
From the State of Oregon:
"Sometimes farm vehicles must operate on highways in order to move between farm and field. Just as motorists are entitled to drive their vehicles on public roadways, farmers are legally allowed to operate farm equipment on these same roads."
http://www.oregon.gov/ODOT/TS/docs/roadway/ruralroadsafety.pdf
@Jenni S. @MarkKpic So, what you're telling me is that I should drive cautiously and go around slower moving vehicles? That's some sound advice right there.Â
My experience has been that there are very few areas in the PMA and Washington Co that are not repleat with drivers who seem to believe that the laws of the roads, not to mention physics, do not apply to them. It's a big part of the reason that I moved away from that madness. It's also part of the reason that I'd never even consider driving a tractor on Hwy 26.Â
What I was asking about were laws (ORS) that specify the use of highways by farm equiptment.Â
BTW... about the only laws that I've found require that farm equiptment on public roads must display the slow vehicle placard (triangle).Â
Now, there are several references to OR DMV 'reccomending' that tractors going slower than 20mph use pilot vehicles, avoid trips at night, and during rush hours.... Yet more sound advice.Â
IMO, 4:15 on a Friday afternoon would probably be considered 'rush hour'. Â
Inevitably, the fault lies squarely upon the driver who hit him. My only consideration is that, myself, I would have probably considered either an alternate route (so as to avoid Hwy 26), waiting until after the Friday rush hour, or having a friend follow me in a car with their hazards going. Best defense is a good offense, ya know?Â
@Jenni S. @MarkKpic Agreed, Jenni. Rush hour is Friday afternoons heading eastbound to the mountain for skiing, and Sunday afternoons westbound coming home from skiing. Sometimes my husband and I play "count the number of cars with snowboards on top". Got 35 one day within about a 4 mile stretch.
@MarkKpic @Jenni S.Â
I've been through that area around that same day/time and I don't see it as "rush hour" in that area east of Sandy. Not on a day like last Friday, and especially not in the westbound lanes. There isn't a lot of traffic headed westbound east of Sandy at 4:15 on a Friday.Â
The best I could find is in that PDF that the state put together on tractors in the roadway. Usually you'll find pilot cars for the larger equipment that goes really slow, but not for a tractor like these ones since the tend to go faster.
More American tractor madness! Tractors are dangerous SUV magnets when operated along busy highways and should be banned. At the very least, automatic tractors should be outlawed, and nothing larger than a push mower should be operated along the side of a busy highway. Grass catchers should be illegal, too.
Speedy recovery to the operator.
More drivers with blinders on. This should not have happened. Speedy recovery or perhaps just a recovery to the tractor driver.
There are too many drivers checked out while on the road.Â
This is why you shouldn't tail gate. You need to leave enough space so you can respond quickly enough.Â
@MorticaeÂ
Most people just don't get the purpose of a safety buffer when you're driving.
Another case of at least one driver no paying attention. Check the driver's cell phone records.
@I812Â Â I say 2 drivers not paying attention and 1 driver tailgating
@wondering @I812  I think it was Bigfoot! He grabbed the tractor and threw it off the road. The government is using a motor vehicle accident as an excuse!
We all know that strange things happen out in East County...well, strange things happen downtown, too, but those are completely different creatures.
@wondering @I812 That assumes the driver that hit the tractor is telling the truth about the other driver swerving.
I grew up and farmed in nebraska. Â We had equipment there that would take up all four lanes of that hiway. Â But the mindset in Nebraska is much different it was a part of life so when cars saw tractors coming down they road the cars would get out of the way it was more of a respect thing. Â I've noticed there is a total lack of respect on the roads here and it makes me fighting mad. Â And for everybody who thinks a tractor should drive in one of the lanes of traffic that is just insane and now you see why. Â With a tractor that small I'd been on the shoulder as far as I could. Â There is nothing illegal about that.
@Common SenceBelieve it or not, it is the same way out here in Sandy/Eagle Creek. Most of the area is rural, and all of us locals watch out for farm equipment as it is common.
The X-factor here is Hwy 26, AKA the Mt Hood highway. I happen to work on 26 in Sandy. I live right off of Firwood and only have to drive about 1/2 mile on 26 each day to get to work. I am still scared to death everytime I turn or attempt to turn onto 26. It's the recreational traffic.
At Shorty's corner right outside of Sandy, there are 5 or 6 crosses by the side of the road where people have died. It's a particularly dangerous corner as there is only a flashing yellow on 26, and it's hard to gauge whether the oncoming traffic is going 15-20 miles an hour above the speed limit. I joke with my husband as I have since we've moved out here: I traded 9-5 rush hour traffic for a town in which rush hour happens on Friday and Sunday afternoons. All those kids wanting to go skiing or snowboarding, driving like maniacs. I think Sundays are the worst. Many of the youngsters come down from the mountain partying, drinking, smoking pot etc. Many people have died on this stretch of the highway.
Summertime isn't any better, because you get the same crew going camping.
It's a huge problem for sure. In fact it is a wonder that deaths aren't more common than they are. It is truly a dangerous stretch of freeway.
Yep, city idiots!!
@musiclover Yeah, on the back roads the locals are all super courteous to one another, don't follow too closely, etc.
It's always some yahoo hauling around 4 wheelers or dirt bikes that has to be a jerk and put others in danger.
Well on the bright side 32-year-old Christopher Huntley Was able to send that text before cops showed up and ask to see his phone...
Oh Wait they didn't do that did they
This *should* result in charges against both the first driver that swerved, and the second driver that hit him.
@starshadowThis *should* result in charges against both the first driver that swerved Because Not hitting him was just as bad...???
What???
@uknow2Â @starshadowÂ
Reckless driving. The driver that waited until the last moment to swerve was following too closely and creating a dangerous environment for other drivers.
@starshadow I couldn't agree more
With a shoulder that wide, and a small enough tractor that could have driven on the shoulder. When younger and we moved tractors from location to location, we kept to the right as much as possible. A more then likely avoidable incident. If it was a really long move, the owner got it on a trailer
Speedy recovery to the tractor operator. A lot of questions still.
@Just LookinÂ
There isn't enough room there on the shoulder - the attachment on the tractor is wider than the shoulder. Even if he was driving as far to the right as possible, he would have still been partially in the right-hand traffic lane.
The problem was that the two drivers were driving recklessly, including following too closely.Â
@Just Lookin So the tractor drive should just drive right over the reflectors that are clearly right at the edge of the road?
The tractor driver was doing exactly as he's expected to do by law. Neither driver - not the first one who swerved, nor the second one who hit him - was driving appropriately. The first should have been paying attention, slowed down, and changed lanes. The second shouldn't have been following the first so closely.
@starshadow @Just Lookin No, the tractor driver should not driver over the reflectors that are "off" the road. Perhaps that is the way you would drive though. If the tractor was too slow moving to maintain...then perhaps a pilot car behind it would have helped.
Did the tractor have a slow moving vehicle triangle? Did the tractor have flashing lights to alert other vehicles that they are slow moving? There is room enough to park a vehicle along side the road on the pavement, so the tractor could have move slowly down the side of the road..."not off the road"
@Just Lookin @starshadowÂ
The tractor itself is about the size of a vehicle. Add in the equipment attached to it and it is now too big to fully fit on the shoulder - it still would have been partially in the roadway. That's even more dangerous than being fully in the lane, as people assume that they can squeeze past you at 55+ mph.
Pilot cars are not required and shouldn't be necessary. It's pretty easy to tell you are coming up on a vehicle too fast and properly adjust. And if you give yourself a proper following distance, not only do you have more time to adjust, but you can better see what is coming up ahead of you. Seeing as he said it was a car that was in front of him, had he been using the proper following distance and been paying attention he would have definitely seen the tractor up ahead.
32-year-old Christopher Huntley of Portland was tailgating, and probably driving too fast as was the car in front of him.
@KATUNews is he OK?
Perhaps tractors don't belong on the highway? I know tractors are an agricultural necessity and are limited to traveling on roadways only between adjacent fields. Anything further away requires the tractor to be loaded on a flatbed. Try to enforce that, however! Or try to cite for a slow-moving vehicle. Tractors are required to use turnouts to allow traffic to pass. Yet, most of them are so big, or have attachments that would wipe out signs, utility poles or mailboxes along the road.   Â
@jpk Sure they do.Â
It's only arrogant automobile and truck drivers who think they own the roads.
Let's see, Friday afternoon, which means it was daylight, the tractor was traveling westbound, which means minimal traffic in the two westbound lanes, and that's a W-I-D-E four-lane highway where the accident occurred.Â
There's no reason, beyond negligence, that any driver could fail to see a tractor traveling along that roadway and take adequate precautions to move around it safely.
Mikey, I thought bicyclists own the roads? LOL
Not to do the job of an accident reconstuctionist, which I'm sure Sandy PD, Clackamas Co SO, or OSP have, I would only want to add that if everyone was going westbound, then perhaps that sundown may have had some effect also. Actually, we can all sit back and think about things, but I'm sure the experts will figure it out. Neither you nor I were there witnessing this, so all this amounts to is conjecture on both of our parts. Agreed?Â
Yup to all the possibilities you mention! But, it makes all of us feel better. No? By the way, nothing we ever post has actual legal ramifications..............thankfully! LOL Â
@jpk Oh, come on, JPK...what fun is that???Â
Of course it's conjecture. 99.9% of everything on these boards is hearsay, conjecture, opinion, libel, rude, inconsiderate, ill-conceived, tasteless, irrelevant, puerile, adolescent, off-topic, or downright false.
;-)
Don't think so...from state of oregon...
Though agricultural vehicles can be slow and sometimes annoying to other motorists, farmers have the right to drive on public roads, including busier roadways. The Oregon Department of Agriculture reported that state legislation in 2009 resulted in the inclusion of farm tractors and other agriculture-related equipment in the definition of "vulnerable user of public way," along with pedestrians and bicyclists. There are high penalties for motorists who drive recklessly around tractors and other farm vehicles.
Farm truck drivers must be at least 18 years of age and must possess a current operator's license. Additionally, they must be able to read and write English, safely operate the vehicle, pass a road test and provide a list of all traffic violations to their employer. Except for the requirement to possess a license, operators driving within 150 air-miles of a farm are not subject to these requirements.
Please refer to ORS 811.130 Impeding Traffic, and ORS 811.512 Unlawfully Operating a low speed vehicle on a highway (and Hiway 26 is definitely a highway), and ORS 811.425 Failure of a slower driver to yield to an overtaking vehicle. Â .
@Mikey
http://www.oregon.gov/ODOT/TS/docs/roadway/ruralroadsafety.pdf
Luckily for all of us, actual determination of law violations are made by judges. LOL
LOL! Try citing the WHOLE law.
811.130 Impeding traffic; penalty. (1) A person commits the offense of impeding traffic if the person drives a motor vehicle or a combination of motor vehicles in a manner that impedes or blocks the normal and reasonable movement of traffic.
(2) A person is not in violation of the offense described under this section if the person is proceeding in a manner needed for safe operation.
(3) Proceeding in a manner needed for safe operation includes but is not necessarily limited to:
(a) Momentarily stopping to allow oncoming traffic to pass before making a right-hand or left-hand turn.
(b) Momentarily stopping in preparation of, or moving at an extremely slow pace while, negotiating an exit from the road.
(4) A person is not in violation of the offense described under this section if the person is proceeding as part of a funeral procession under the direction of a funeral escort vehicle or a funeral lead vehicle.
===================================
IMPLEMENTS OF HUSBANDRY
820.400 Unlawful operation of implement of husbandry; penalty. (1) A person commits the offense of unlawful operation of an implement of husbandry if the person operates an implement of husbandry in violation of any of the following:
(a) Such vehicle must be driven as closely as is practicable to the right-hand edge of the roadbed, including the shoulders, if any.
(b) Such vehicle, if the movement of the vehicle occurs during the hours of darkness, must be equipped and operating two headlights, clearance lights and reflectors marking the overall width as far as practical and visible from the front, rear and sides and a taillight.
(c) An image display device may not be operated in an implement of husbandry at any time while the implement of husbandry is being operated on a highway. As used in this paragraph, âimage display deviceâ has the meaning given that term in ORS 815.240.
(d) Such vehicle must display, when driven, a slow-moving vehicle emblem described in ORS 815.060.@jpk In rural Clackamas County, you will often see farm equipment moving on the roadway. This section of road is FOUR lanes plus wide shoulders. Some/all of this has to be driver error, not to be blamed on the tractor operator.
Additionally, please note, this appears to be a fairly small tractor without a lot of protection for the operator. The auto hit it so hard he was pinned under it.
Granted, there are two lanes in each direction with plenty of shoulder room. If the tractor was small, as it appears to be, he could have driven on the shoulder without impairing drivers moving at considerably greater speed than his tractor was capable of. Perhaps the cause of this crash could be shared?
@jpkÂ
There's another lane. People can pay attention and go around. When they get down to only a single late, then they pull over as there is room to do so.
@Just Lookin @starshadow @jpkÂ
It's not wide enough. There is just barely enough room for a vehicle to be parked there and the driver's mirror not be in traffic. The tractor is about the size of a vehicle. Add in the equipment - which looks to add 3'+ to the width of the vehicle, and now it no longer fits. And having it stick a little ways into traffic is even more dangerous, as people then try to squeeze by at high rates of speed.
A tractor CAN stop to let others by, without hitting those wonderful reflectors, you know!
@starshadow @jpk You sure seem to have something against the reflectors that are "NOT" on the road, but off it. The pavement past the solid line is wide enough it appears in the pictures. Yes, the cars were not really paying attention in front of them as they should.
@Jenni S.   Blame goes to the vehicle that hit the tractor. Vehicle 1 was able to avoid a collision. Had vehicle 2 been far enough back (not tailgating), he would have had sufficient time to react. Hope the tractor driver recocvers fully.
@jpkÂ
The tractor was small, but its attachment was large enough so that even if he were on the shoulder, part of the tractor would be in the traffic lane.
The cause definitely cannot be shared. This would have been no different than a vehicle that had to go slower for whatever reason. There were two lanes. The first car should have been paying enough attention to get over into the left lane in time that they didn't have to swerve. The second car should have been paying attention to what was going on in front of him and not following other vehicles so closely. The blame is entirely on those two vehicles.
@jpk So the tractor driver is supposed to break the law, drive on the shoulder, and run into all the reflectors that line the road?Â
Yeah, that makes sense.
Maybe the metro-cesspool people that don't have the sense to 1) do the speed limit, or 2) following at a safe distance, or 3) pay attention to someone other than themselves - don't deserve to be driving in the first place.