Bear hits car on I-84 near Hilgard, driver and baby uninjured

A bear on Interstate 84 westbound just west of Hilgard sent one car out of service, but the driver and her 11-month-old child walked away unharmed.

Oregon State Police took the report Wednesday, May 20, at about 9 p.m. near milepost 250, where a single-vehicle crash involved a bear crossing the highway. The bear reportedly ran from the scene after the collision, while the vehicle was left not drivable.

The timing made the crash more likely. Around 9 p.m., visibility is reduced and wildlife movement can be unpredictable, especially in spring and early summer when animals are more active and traffic on the interstate is picking up. In the Blue Mountains corridor east of La Grande, that means drivers are sharing a major freight and travel route with deer, elk and, occasionally, larger animals such as bears.

The stretch near La Grande is not new to wildlife-collision concerns. Oregon Department of Transportation wildlife-collision maps, covering dispatch reports from January 2019 through December 2023, identify animal crash density along Oregon highways, including the La Grande area corridor. ODOT says wildlife corridors are designed to give animals safe passage across fragmented habitat and reduce vehicle-wildlife collisions, a reminder that the hazard is built into some parts of the state highway system, not just isolated backroads.

Union County’s own safety planning points to a broader roadway problem. The county’s Local Road Safety Plan says unbelted driver crashes are 27 percent higher than the statewide rate, and that 199 crashes happened on local roads between 2014 and 2018, with several in La Grande and Island City. The Union County Safety Coalition, formed in 2020, brought together engineering, enforcement, education and emergency-response partners to review those crash patterns.

ODOT’s 2024 Wildlife Crossing Report says completed wildlife passage projects have cut wildlife-vehicle collisions by 85 percent in fenced areas at Lava Butte, showing why the state keeps investing in crossings and corridor fixes. And the Hilgard crash was not an isolated reminder: a separate bear-versus-car collision near Huntington in May 2025 injured four people, underscoring that wildlife on eastern Oregon highways remains a real safety threat.

For drivers heading through Union County, the immediate takeaway is simple: slow down at dusk and after dark, keep scanning the shoulders and roadway ahead, and treat wildlife on I-84 as a routine hazard, not a rare surprise.