[ursus]

This film footage was found in a trashbin when the City of Portland was clearing out some old records. It was shot by the Traffic Commission from a mounted camera at a number of Portland's more dangerous intersections, as part of an effort to improve safety. At the time (1939) Portland had an embarrassingly high traffic fatality rate. The variation and randomness of driving behavior back then is surprising to us nowadays.

When driving around Portland, my Dad used to point out the many intersections that once had only a blinking yellow light. He described how difficult it was to figure out what the other drivers were going to do next, kind of like playing chicken at every turn. It was especially crazy in the era before turn signals, when rainy weather prompted a lot of drivers to lapse in their use of hand signals.