The person with the green traffic signal went through the intersection. The person with the red signal failed to stop and hit the person with the green signal, who sustained serious injuries in the collision. The entire incident was clearly captured on video.
What happened to Lisa Timmerman while cycling on Southeast Clinton Street on June 27th, 2024 was as much of an open-and-shut case you could ever get. Even the responding officer understood that the driver of the blue sedan that hit Timmerman was at fault (and said so in the police report). But the officer chose to not issue a citation to the driver because she was, “remorseful and apologetic for hitting the cyclist.”
This jaw-dropping reason for letting someone off the hook who so clearly and egregiously failed to operate their vehicle in a safe manner was was hard for Timmerman (and any rational person) to swallow. On November 17th, 2025 she filed a complaint with the City of Portland’s Independent Police Review (IPR), claiming that the officer who worked her case should have issued the driver a citation.
The response from IPR wasn’t what Timmerman hoped for.
“In this case, the officer’s actions appear to be within policy,” wrote IPR Director Ross Caldwell. “Portland Police Bureau Directive gives officers discretion to issue citations. This is even true when a driver appears to be at fault. Because the Directive allows for this discretion, we cannot prove that there was misconduct.”
That makes sense from a technical and policy point-of-view; but its implications are maddening in the real world where there are vast disparities in the safety of road users and where so many people drive cars as if they are the only ones on the road.
“It seems like we could come up with all the creative consequences we want to deter dangerous driving,” Timmerman shared with me via email after reading the IPR response. “But if individual officers are not committed to roadway safety, it ultimately doesn’t matter.”
Timmerman added that she recently received a parking ticket, paid the $165 fine (she admits reading a sign incorrectly), and couldn’t help but notice the contrast in penalties.
On December 11th, Deputy City Administrator of Public Safety Bob Cozzie emailed Portland city councilors after several of them inquired to his office about Timmeman’s case. Speaking for the PPB, Cozzie wrote, “They recognize that some people feel frustrated that a citation was not issued in this case. PPB and I hear that concern, and we don’t take it lightly.”
“I disagree,” Timmerman said, when I asked her to respond to Cozzie’s statement. “I feel like they did take it lightly. This seems like a ‘thoughts and prayers’ response to me.”
What’s particularly galling about this case is that community and traffic safety advocates worked hard to pass a law in 2007 that addresses this exact situation: Where a driver causes serious injuries to a vulnerable road user and doesn’t face stiff enough consequences. To have someone simply say “Oops I’m sorry” to an officer and get off scot-free makes a mockery of that law.
In his email to councilors, Cozzie wrote that, “a citation is only a part of the potential consequence, the driver may also face civil liability.” This is also known as the “let the insurance companies figure it out,” approach. But that’s inherently unfair and unjust. “It puts the burden and cost of seeking the remedy on the crash victim,” Timmerman shared with me. She also pointed out that Oregon insurance minimums have not kept up with current medical costs. And, she says, “It’s a highly inequitable system because the outcome is dependent on who hits you: The outcome is completely different if a middle aged successful business person hits you versus a recent college grad versus a hit-and-run or uninsured driver.”
We need a better solution. What happened to Timmerman should never happen again.
“I just want there to be some consequence to communicate to the driver that this was very serious and they need to not repeat this action ever again,” she wrote to me via email. “There’s some real cognitive dissonance when we say safety is a priority, we know this is a dangerous corridor, and yet, when we stare the real-life consequences in the face we fail to act.”