NEWBERG, Ore. — A 19-year-old Salem man died in the afternoon of July 11 after his car crossed into oncoming traffic on the Newberg-Dundee Bypass and collided head-on with a commercial truck, according to a preliminary Oregon State Police investigation.
Oregon State Police said the crash occurred at 2:06 p.m. July 11 on Highway 18 near milepost 58. A silver Honda Civic driven by Jayce Alan Hall, 19, of Salem, was traveling westbound near Newberg when it failed to negotiate a turn, drifted into the eastbound lane and struck a white International commercial vehicle head-on, police said.
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Hall was pronounced dead at the scene. A passenger in the Honda, 18-year-old Isaiah Jacob Aas of Salem, was taken to an area hospital with serious injuries. The truck’s driver, 43-year-old Robert Emmanuel Hunter of Portland, was not injured and remained cooperative with investigators, police said.
According to crash reports provided by ODOT’s Crash Analysis and Reporting Unit, the Highway 18 segment between mileposts 56 and 60 — which includes the bypass — recorded four fatal crashes and five deaths from 2018 through 2025. Three of those four fatal crashes were head-on collisions; the fourth was a sideswipe between vehicles traveling in opposite directions. Including Saturday’s crash, the segment has recorded five fatal crashes and six deaths since 2018, according to the data. ODOT noted that its 2025 and 2026 figures remain preliminary and subject to change.
Mindy McCartt, an ODOT public information officer, said the bypass is functioning as intended by routing highway traffic — including commercial trucks — away from downtown Newberg’s more congested, pedestrian-heavy intersections.
“When you really look at the purpose of that bypass, it was to take traffic outside of town, off into a two-lane highway with really no turns and stops,” McCartt said. “It’s just a thoroughfare.”
McCartt said the undivided, two-lane bypass does not currently meet the engineering criteria typically required for a median barrier that would provide physical separation of the vehicles to prevent or significantly reduce the chances of head-on or sideswiping crashes. She said ODOT evaluates safety improvements statewide using national and state engineering standards, along with crash history, rather than in response to individual incidents.
“Our engineers really study that data, look at the national and state standards, and then determine what safety measures can be put into place in those areas of high concern,” McCartt said.
McCartt said residents can submit safety concerns to ODOT directly, through a petition, or through local officials such as the Newberg City Council or state legislators.
“Community input is paramount and so important to the process of what we do and what we look at,” McCartt said.
