Maine Public | By Nicole Ogrysko
Published May 27, 2026 at 10:27 AM EDT
The Cumberland County district attorney has announced a new policy that will start treating all pedestrian or bike crashes resulting in injury as potential criminal or civil violations.
The announcement comes in the wake of what District Attorney Jackie Sartoris described as the deadliest year on record for Cumberland County pedestrians in 2025.
Last year, there were more than 460 pedestrian and cyclist crashes across the state, with more than 80 serious injuries and nearly 30 fatalities, according to the Bicycle Coalition of Maine.
In Cumberland County alone, there were more than 140 crashes involving pedestrians or cyclists, with 8 fatalities. Andrew Zarro, the coalition’s executive director, said the new policy brings much-needed accountability that pedestrians and cyclists have been seeking.
“It declares that when a person is walking or biking and they’re hurt on our roads, that incident deserves serious investigation,” Zarro said Wednesday during a press conference in Portland.
Maine law already requires police to send cases where there is probable cause for a criminal or civil violation to the district attorney’s office. But Sartoris said prosecutors are rarely charging drivers involved in pedestrian or bicycle crashes with civil violations.
“Unless there is actual criminal violation — I’m on my phone or I’m behaving recklessly — nothing happens,” she told reporters. “And that’s what we’re really trying to change here.”
Now, Sartoris said all cases involving an injury to a bicyclist or pedestrian will be sent to the district attorney’s office for review. Police will secure crash scenes, preserve evidence and send completed reports about the accident to the district attorney’s office, where prosecutors will decide whether criminal charges or civil violations should be issued.
Sartoris says drivers who receive a civil violation could face a penalty of up to $5,000. They could also lose their license for up to four years.
A spokesperson for the Portland Police Department said officers already forward investigative reports involving motor vehicles and pedestrians and cyclists to the district attorney’s office for review. The announcement, the spokesperson said, will not change how Portland police do business.
Sartoris said police are sending crash reports to her office, but she’s looking for more detail.
“That is a small couple of pages that show you what happened,” she said. “I’m not getting witness statements. I’m not getting a full report. And that’s why I decided, you know what, I’m trying to do what I can within the system, and now I just need to say this needs to be different. I know that the officers out there are doing the work. We’re not asking them to do more work. … We are just asking them to upload that information to my office so that we can take the steps that only we can really take to hold them accountable.”
Sartoris acknowledged that prosecutors will likely have heavier workloads with the new policy in place but said the county needed to do more. She referenced Joe Lewis, an attorney and friend, who was struck by a car last year in Portland while walking from his office. Lewis died from his injuries.
“I can’t say no to cases that I think are really important, because my prosecutors are already having to deal with heavy caseloads,” Sartoris said. “We just have to balance wherever we can.”
The district attorney’s office is expected to issue guidance and training to police departments in the coming days.
Sartoris, who was elected district attorney in 2022, faces a challenge from former prosecutor Valerie Adams in the upcoming Democratic primary on June 9.
Adams described the policy as a positive idea and said she’s glad to see attention being paid pedestrian and bicyclist safety. But she also expressed concerns about how the policy might be implemented and suggested that police officers could receive more training about the kinds of potential crimes or citations they could consider.
“There are a number of civil citations that can be issued in these cases, and where a driver has acted with negligence, a victim may be able to obtain relief through a civil case,” Adams said in an email. “Some accidents are just that — accidents. Many cases that involve pedestrians or cyclists are already prosecuted criminally when prosecution is appropriate, and many are submitted by law enforcement for review when the officer investigating is uncertain.”