Two years have passed since 11-year-old Rhiana Daniel was fatally struck by a motorist at the South Corvallis pedestrian crosswalk, located between Southeast Chapman Place and Southwest Twin Oaks Circle. Her death was the third to occur at that crosswalk between June 2018 and January 2020, resulting in the loss of life of two pedestrians and one bicyclist in under two years.
The other lives lost were those of Jeremy Gruver and Eric Austin.
In May of 2021, Rhiana’s father, Roy Daniel, filed a lawsuit against the City of Corvallis and the Oregon Department of Transportation alleging officials neglected to properly maintain and modify the crosswalk to enhance safety, contributing to the loss of his daughter. Daniel is seeking $95,329.03 for economic damages, and $9 million in non-economic damages.
The complaint reads, in part, “His life, and the lives of his other eight living children, have been severely and permanently altered due to the injuries and losses suffered in the subject incident… [and] have suffered pain, emotional distress, substantial disruption of ordinary activities of daily living, inconvenience, concern for physical and mental wellbeing, loss of companionship, and interference with [their] usual and customary activities.”
The Defendants’ response? Both the city and the state allege in their responsive court filing that the damages, injuries and death referred to in Daniel’s complaint “were caused by the fault and negligence of Rhiana Daniel…” Most of the language used accuses her of failure: a failure to maintain a proper lookout for her own safety; a failure to maintain proper control of herself; a failure to follow instructions for using the crosswalk.
Notably, despite public outcry from the neighborhood in the five months preceding Rhiana’s death, the city and state demonstrated their own failure – to repair the middle flashing yellow lights pedestrians could activate at the crosswalk. Those lights stopped working after a different collision at that location in August of 2019.
Who Has Failed?
Blame was not placed solely, by the city and state, on Rhiana, of course; Peter Eschwey, the driver who struck Rhiana with his vehicle, was described as failing, among other things, to exercise due care and regard to avoid colliding with her. Yet witnesses have said Escheway was moving with the flow of traffic and that they didn’t notice any issues with his driving leading up to the collision, and no charges have been filed against him since that night.
We see a level of systemic failure here.
“It’s a dangerous intersection that needs to be changed; it’s been that way for a while,” said Michael Wise, attorney for Mr. Daniel. “And frankly, a lot of [people] from politicians to citizens have said the same.”
What Has Been Said
Shortly after Rhiana’s death, the city claimed in a Facebook post that they had been following discussions and comments across various social media sites about proposed solutions from community members to improve pedestrian safety in the area, and were inspired by their “outpouring of support and awareness.”
In an interview with The Advocate, Ward 3 City Councilor Hyatt Lytle remarked, “My view is two deaths at one crosswalk is too many. Three deaths in under a 200 ft radius? That tells me that there are some significant deficits with pedestrian-oriented design standards.” This was only one of several interviews conducted for the same story, and it’s worth a read, given the current denials.
Shortly after Rhiana’s death, a community comments session in a Jan. 21, 2020 City Council meeting was inundated with testimonies from Corvallis residents – especially residents of South Corvallis. One of the speakers was Wendy Byrne, a member of the Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Board (BPAB), who referenced the Imagine Corvallis 2040 resolution’s vision of the city as being supportive of alternative forms of transportation, including walking and biking. Byrne noted that it would be more difficult for the city to convince people to walk or bike knowing what had happened, and asked what it would take “to shift from autocentric priorities to safety for all users.”
“Do not wait for something awful to happen somewhere else in Corvallis, and then decide to redesign that street on that location,” said Byrne. “Let’s be proactive and design safety into all of our streets, both old and new.”
Ward 5 City Councilor Charlyn Ellis responded, “I appreciate the fact that you’re taking what happened in South Town, which was tragic, and reminding us that it is a citywide problem. We’re not necessarily safe on foot or bike anywhere.”
This is certainly not Corvallis’ only stretch of hazardous infrastructure for pedestrians and/or bicyclists, but is there any other 200-foot-radius area in the city where three people were fatally struck in such short succession?
After the comments session closed, City Manager Mark Shepard acknowledged that the accidents that occurred at the crosswalk had “profoundly impacted” three families, adding, “These accidents have also impacted our community… And by community, that is the people living in South Corvallis and throughout the entire city, the Council, and [city] staff.”
What’s Being Said Now
Today, the city’s position appears to have shifted from outward expressions of grief, inspiration, and attentiveness to a community’s amplified calls for improved pedestrian and bicyclist safety, to defensiveness and a denial of their own role in Rhiana’s death — and, by that logic, the deaths of pedestrians and bicyclists on that crosswalk before her.
In our view, this is gaslighting.
It took the preventable death of a little girl to finally spur city officials and the state of Oregon into implementing safety measures that Corvallis residents had, for years, petitioned for. George Brown, a South Corvallis resident and President of the Tunison Neighborhood Association, highlighted this in his testimony during the Jan. 21 City Council meeting in 2020.
According to Brown, in 2008 the Benton County Health Department’s Healthy Kids/Healthy Communities Initiative conducted a survey of parents living in South Corvallis, and found that the majority of parents didn’t feel safe walking or biking with their children along Third Street. The Initiative, in partnership with Corvallis Public Works, ODOT, and others, created a Health Impact Assessment in 2013 to determine the effects that traffic speed on Highway 99/South Third Street had on the South Corvallis community at the time; recommendations included lowering the speed limit to 25 mph and implementing changes to the road’s infrastructure for improved safety.
“The unsafe conditions on the road have been known for a lot of years, and nothing happened. So people start to lose faith in their Council and in the city,” said Brown. “What’s the holdup, honestly? Why does it take so long for these things to happen? I think systems are broken; I think our city systems are broken… It’s a sick, twisted system where we have to lament that there has to be a tragedy before something happens. It’s even sicker that it takes three tragedies.”
It was also in January of 2020 when Senator Sara Gelser Blouin expressed hope that those who had experienced these tragedies personally could be held “in a space of respect and kindness.”
So, are the city and state’s decisions to refute accountability and place the blame on 11-year-old Rhiana Daniel for causing the collision as well as her own injuries and death respectful or kind?
And, honestly, we’re sickened by the idea of a government that tells us how tragic or God forbid “inspiring” Rhiana’s death was one year, only to start playing a game of blame-shifting and finger-pointing the next.
Further, this dodging sends a message to the Corvallis community that their years of testimony, protesting, and awareness raising was fruitless, and easily dismissible.
That all said, and with sentiment pushed aside, we believe our government officials should take responsibility. Rhiana died because, after two deaths, they did not move with appropriate speed to make the intersection safer. They should agree with Daniel, and pay the damages he’s suing for.
Note: Another of the families impacted by the crosswalk has also come forward with a lawsuit, and we are beginning to study that case as well.
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