Traffic deaths by race and ethnicity
Metro created a dashboard to support understanding of the disproportionate impact that fatal traffic deaths have on people of color in the greater Portland region.
Explore the dashboard
Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian and other people of color are more likely to be killed in a traffic crash. These community members are also less safe from harassment and other types of violence on our roadways.
In Multnomah County, Black people are twice as likely to die in a traffic crash. And 76 percent of pedestrian deaths occurs in the communities in our region where more people of color, people with lower incomes and people with limited English proficiency live. Nationally, Black people are 80 percent more likely to be killed by drivers while walking than White, non-Hispanic pedestrians. Additionally, Black people are the most common targets of racial bias crimes in Portland, 60 percent of which take place in public spaces. Black pedestrians are stopped by police at higher rates than other races, and drivers are less likely to yield to Black people crossing at a crosswalk. In Oregon, Black people experience the greatest disparity in pedestrian deaths, followed by Indigenous, Latinx and Asian people who also have a higher rate of pedestrian injury than the state average.
The dashboard was created using data from the Fatal and Injury Reporting System Tool provided by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. This report allows users to view and interact with fatal crash data for the United States, Oregon, and Clackamas, Multnomah and Washington counties. The data in the dashboard is for traffic deaths and uses data from 2007 to 2022.
Both the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) and Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) crash data are generated from police reports. Metro provides a version of the ODOT crash data that contains additional fields and is limited to Clackamas, Multnomah, and Washington counties through the Regional Land Information System. FARS data is collected at a national level and includes demographic information about crash participants that ODOT does not retain, namely race and ethnicity. Several factors make it difficult to reliably combine the ODOT and FARS data, so the goal of this viewer is to increase access to race and ethnicity information for fatal crashes in the greater Portland area.