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Editorial: Travel Around Oregon Coast Taken Rude, Deadly Turns

By Andre' Hagestedt, Oregon Coast Beach Connection editor

Small, winding roads near Florence - typical of many routes around the coast

Something about traveling to, from and around the Oregon coast has me greatly concerned. It’s a three-headed monster, really. Some of it is an asinine attitude of certain travelers, which just seems to have gotten worse. Some of it involves a series of bad coincidences that have resulted in nasty tragedies, like the recent discovery a pair of Californians died just miles from this region. Another part of it involves missing persons cases in this state are strangely getting solved by people other than authorities, indicating they may need help.

It’s not all connected. But it could wind up so. And it’s something to worry about.

The first incident involved the Kim family from San Francisco, whose father, James Kim, died while trying to fetch help in a maze of snowy, Oregon coast range wilderness. I, like millions of others around the nation, were rooting for the family to be found faster than they were. But what was disturbing was that it took family members and a helicopter they had hired to find the mother and children.

Traffic jam along Highway 101 in Newport

That was one thing. That was an oddity, it seemed. But then it again happened just the other day.

We’re all now well familiar with the tale of two Californians, Father David Schwartz and his traveling companion, Cheryl Gibbs, who went missing after being seen at a Portland hotel, only to be found dead in a ravine along Highway 26 a few weeks later.

This time, the tragedy struck me personally. I was zipping along the highway when I spotted a small herd of search and rescue vehicles by the side of the road, along with family of the travelers. I immediately knew what they had found, what all this meant. I was witness to the sad discovery.

Also, it was my friend Melissa at the Nehalem Bay Winery who was apparently the last to see them. Later, at the winery, we watched news coverage confirming it was the bodies of the pair inside the car, along with interviews of Melissa. We were in shock, and sometimes in tears.

Nehalem Bay Winery: the last place the couple from California were known to be before they died

I realized I had passed that spot at least four times to and from the coast since they ended up in that ditch. This will haunt me.

We sat and discussed this with much fervor: and the idea that kept coming up was how they and the Kim family were eventually discovered with integral help from family members. In the recent case, it was their relatives who turned the search to the Oregon coast, after they had literally scoured every tourist attraction from Astoria southward, until they found a visitor page signed by Gibbs at the Tillamook Cheese Factory.

I sincerely hope State troopers and other law enforcement are taking cues from the Kim case and this most recent one. There are undoubtedly sleuthing lessons to be learned.

Also disturbing was how on earth did the pair wind up in a ditch on the opposite side of the road? The talk in Manzanita among the locals was perhaps someone fell asleep at the wheel – hence the no skid marks.

Personally, I wonder if it’s something just a tad more insidious. This brings me to my other observations: tourists driving around the coastal region are getting more unruly and idiotic.

Depoe Bay

While I can’t quantify this with hard stats from ODOT, I can tell you my own experiences, as two or three times a week I run the roads to the north and central coast and up and down Highway 101 from Seaside to Yachats. It’s gotten worse in the last year.

It seems people more and more are ignoring the fact you should turn off your highbeams at night when traffic is approaching you. You can flash them even more than once and they still refuse to turn it off. This is dangerous and dumb along the curvy roads and slopes of Highways 6, 26 and 18. Knock it off.

It seems there’s a lot more middle fingers being raised. There’s a lot more incoherent or inconsiderate driving behavior, like passing when you shouldn’t, excessive tailgating, seriously impeding traffic with recklessly low speeds, insanely high speed, and just loads of dumb moves in a car.

Twice on that day after seeing authorities recovering Gibbs’ and Schwartz’s vehicle, I was unnecessarily flipped off by angry, weirdo drivers. Both involved people making puzzling, incredibly slow moves that brought traffic behind them to a crawl and confused other motorists somewhat dangerously. And then they, in turn, would get angry at me for passing them.

One happened while heading back to Portland after dark, where two vehicles were driving less than 40 mph hour in a 55 zone, and huddling close together.

Highway 6, between Portland and Tillamook

I am not tailgating, however. In fact, the two cars are driving dangerously close to each other. Yet for some reason, one young man in the back seat of the rear car continually flips me off.

His anger reaches a dizzy zenith as I pass him at a mere 55 mph, and he flips me off even more feverishly.

Folks, we’re trying to have a civilization here.

And my stories of people driving in the snow of the coast range in the winter? I don’t even have room to describe the insane tailgators and speeders. What a group of losers.

All these drivers behaving badly makes me wonder about what Father Schwartz and Gibbs may have encountered on their drive back to Portland. Did some idiot road-rage him them off the side of the road? Were they blinded by some pig-headed redneck in his massive truck who refused to turn off his brights?

I’m seeing more of this idiocy on the coast range and coast roads. It needs to stop. More law enforcement might help. But some of it is just so momentary or even odd behavior that it’s doubtful a whole brigade of cops could catch it. It needs to start with common sense being drilled back into the driver.

Turn off your headlights with approaching traffic. Don’t pass at no passing zones. Don’t tailgate. Don’t use excessive speed in adverse conditions, or even good conditions, especially on those winding roads. Conversely, don’t hold up traffic with excessively low speeds and then refuse to get out of the way.

And leave the finger and angry, weirdo behavior at home. I’m patrolling these roads now, and I’m going to report you nutcases next time. I’m not going to take it anymore.

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