Police identify Bend woman, 74, killed in crash on SW Century Drive
(Update: Police release details of crash)
BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) – A 74-year-old Bend woman was killed Thursday when her SUV was struck by a pickup towing a large trailer on Southwest Century Drive, Bend police said.
Officers were dispatched around 11:45 a.m. to the reported injury crash at the intersection of Century Drive and East Campbell Road, by Mount Bachelor Village, Lt. Clint Burleigh said.
They found that a Dodge pickup heading west on Century Drive, pulling a large trailer with equipment, struck the driver’s side of a Nissan SUV whose driver, Kathleen Sue Case, was trying to turn left (east) onto Century Drive, Burleigh said.
The driver of the pickup, a 34-year-old Bend man, and two passengers in the pickup, all medically trained, provided emergency care to Case, but she sustained fatal injuries, the lieutenant said.
Burleigh said the pickup driver cooperated with the investigation, and that “at this time, investigators have ruled out speed and intoxication as factors in the crash.”
The crash investigation closed Century Drive for about three hours, prompting traffic returning to Bend from Mt. Bachelor to be detoured into Sunriver.
Burleigh thanked the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office, ODOT and the Bend Streets Department for their assistance.
Century Drive was closed between Reed Market Road and Mammoth Drive until just before 3 p.m., officials said.
ODOT said the crash at milepost 4 on Century Drive (state Highway 372) meant downhill traffic leaving Mt. Bachelor needed to take the Sunriver exit to return to Bend. They warned to expect lengthy delays.
Other drivers in the area also were urged to use alternate routes during the closure.
Surprised it was so close to the roundabout.
Depends on your definition of close
I live on E Campbell and this intersection is dangerous. We and our neighbors have communicated and worked with the city of Bend in 2020, who wanted to make changes to the intersection but couldn’t because it’s under the jurisdiction of ODOT who declined to make changes. Our family rarely uses this intersection because of the excessive speed and lack of line of sight and usually detour on back roads to Mt Washington/Reed Market by Cascade Middle School. The nearest crosswalk is 3/4 miles away and cars will routinely not yield and swerve around adults and children crossing. So unfortunate but not surprising that a fatality occurred here.
The City maintains this section of Century Drive. We’re seeing more traffic and it’ll continue to increase because of new construction and the City diverting traffic down Skyline Ranch Road from Northwest Crossing and beyond because they made previous promises to other neighborhoods. They’re creating a problem that they they say that they can’t solve? To claim that they can’t do anything because it’s a state highway (within and maintained by the city) is a cop-out.
Lifted truck can negate the side impact protection in modern cars.
GO BACK TO CALIFORNIA
Go back to the south confederate.
Actually a factory raised suv that gives an older driver a greater false sense of security keeps them driving later in life.
Curious why i have made two different comments about century drive’s heavy recreational traffic flow, that are deleted? Clearly from the pics, at least one of these vehicles was recreational. Its a sad situation but we dont do anyones memory justice if we just ignore why these crashes happen
Because, as I’ve explained to you and others before, friends and family of those killed in local fatal crashes or other tragedies DO read the comments here – whether you believe it or not – and while some discussion of safety issues is warranted, we draw the line tighter and raise the bar to be sensitive to those who are in pain. Some judgment calls are easier than others, but we’ll still make them, and in these situations/stories, they must clear a higher bar. Hopefully most people will understand why.
Because you are a KNOW IT All, who usually knows NOTHING about the stupid insensitive comments you make.
You should find a hobby, or better yet, a job, and keep your comments to yourself.
It’s because you always act like a know it all and according to you every other commenter is always wrong.
Actually it is not “clearly a recreational” as you try to call it. Most, if not all, of our local contractors use trailers similar to this one to go from job to job. You might be correct but it is not “clearly” anything.
Folks, PLEASE stay on top of the driving abilities of your older relatives. Make the difficult call of contacting the DMV if you have to. I had an incident years ago when an 81 year old gentleman ran a stop sign and entered a 55 mph highway I was travelling on; he said he didn’t see me (in the middle of a sunny day). It took all my driving skill to avoid broadsiding the driver side door; I managed to hit his front fender instead. He survived with just a bump on his head from hitting the steering wheel; it could have been a lot worse. After that his son finally made sure his dad didn’t drive again.
Very tragic for both the family of the deceased and the driver of the pickup. The city of Bend clearly has no plan to alleviate the traffic congestion. Unfortunately, we’ll see more of this as unsustainable growth continues here.
The more populated a place is, the less likely you are to die in an automobile. Speed is always a factor.
They said speed was not a factor, so there is that. But thanks for commenting. No one knows what happened here that is commenting in this forum about age etc. Condolences to the family of this beloved woman and local gem.
If the truck was doing 4mph in bumper to bumper traffic, speed would have been a factor of a lower fatality rate found in over populated areas
I live a mile west of that intersection and our road is a nightmare to exit at times. Forget about turning left during the recreational rush to the mountains. In addition every summer weekend hundreds of mountain bikers try to cross over to Phils trails which start right here. I am surprised no one has gotten hit yet. When a developer applied for a new subdivision added to our road I went to the city meeting to see if they would do something about the speed along this stretch. They indicated that ODOT was responsible for this stretch and according to their study done in November of 2008 there were no traffic problems. That is right, during the worst recession in 100 years and during the slowest month for visitors there were no problems. Now add another 20K people to Bend since then. When I brought this fact up the city planner stood there and said that since there were few if any fatalities there was no need to look into this issue. So there you have it. That is the city standard for eventually addressing this issue.
The line of sight on that intersection when looking left is about 50 yards. A vehicle traveling at 45 mph will cover that distance in a little over 2 seconds. Some form of traffic control should be in place or this may happen again. Also, that intersection is nearly impossible to cross as a pedestrian on weekends, during the rush to get to the mountain, and most anytime these days. Again, 2 seconds barely gets you to the middle of the road as a pedestrian. A foot bridge or tunnel for pedestrian traffic is needed.