Arizona Bike Law Blog

Is Pecos Road here in Ahwatukee (Phoenix, AZ) a death trap?

UPDATE 2, a fifth fatality; Weerasak Senaprakome, 21 hit a barrier or something at the I-10 to Pecos transition, in the wee hours of Dec 30, 2007. He was the driver in a single car collision. This probably doesn’t have anything in particular to do with Pecos Road. But would be five for those keeping a body count. In the Ahwatukee Foothills News story, Doug Murphy wrote “…While Pecos Road doesn’t have an unusually high number of crashes, motorists have often complained that speeds far exceed the posted 55 mph speed limit”. (I think the limit is actually 50, by the way). I don’t know about the crash rate but the fatality rate sure seems high(?).

UPDATE: A fourth fatality plus serious injury occurred Christmas eve 2007. Trang Vo (34 y.o. female) was killed, plus 3 more seriously injured. Christopher Smith, 30, of Tempe was apparently driving the wrong way and caused the head-on collision — DUI possible in Pecos Road fatal collision, The Ahwatukee (Arizona) Republic, Dec 27, 2007.

In the recent past there have been 3 fatalities along Pecos Road. The most recent serious collision which occurred Friday September 14, 2007 is strikingly similar to the crash on December 2, 2003 that took the life of Sarah Wintz. On November 28, 2003, just five days earlier Phuong Pham was killed while attempting to enter Pecos Road at Desert Foothills Parkway, which at the time was before the traffic signal was installed. And in November 2004 cyclist Don Anselmo was killed on the shoulder as a driver simply drifted off the road.

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A motor vehicle driver was negligent in all the deaths, as well as all of the many serious injuries.

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Pecos crash leaves 13-year-old fighting for life, Doug Murphy …The crash was almost identical to the December 2003 collision that killed 17-year-old Sarah Wentz [should be Wintz]. The driver of the small pickup truck in which she was a passenger, 17-year-old Brian Norethrup [should be Northrup], was seriously injured when he turned north onto 40th Street from Pecos Road and was struck by an oncoming pickup truck. Both were seniors at Mountain Pointe High School….

Update 9/21/2007 issue of Ahwatukee Foothills News, Teen injured in crash at Pecos/40th still critical: “It is clearly visible on the video that (Arturo) Ruiz is at fault,” said Sgt. Joel Tranter, a spokesman for the Phoenix Police Department. “It is failure to yield to oncoming traffic while turning left at an intersection. The Nissan was clearly in the intersection on yellow – he (Shugrue) was lawfully in the intersection.”

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Regarding the Wintz fatality — December 2, 2004:

The vehicles collided as the Toyota driven by Northrup was turning left onto 40th Street and John Andrew Casey’s Ford F-350 entered the intersection.

There is an internet forum posting in something called the [H]ard|Forum, where the hard refers to (computer) hardware. Anyways, the post was written January 2004, under the moniker of DarkEve and he purports to be Brian Northup. There are many tidbits of information — the veracity of which is very hard to determine. e.g. something about a brake recall on Ford F-350, “…found by Sarah’s parents attorny. Apparently the other driver has a history of tickets and previous accidents…”, “…it has been determined by police that he was traveling at a very excessive rate of speed…”,” I got the police report today (1/23/2004) as did Sarah’s parents…The police report found the accident to be his fault, but did not issue any tickets.” Here is a long passage posted 1/30/2004:

In the police report he states that he was going exactly the speed limit and wasnt speeding at all. Then claims that the light was green and that I gunned it to try to make it through. Even his passengers said that he was speeding…

He was one of two people who said it was green. The other guy also said that my car flipped… which it didnt, lol.

6 other witnesses said either yellow or red, and every single other person stopped but him.

He also claimed that there wasnt time to hit his brakes… after he left between 100 and 175 feet of tread marks… because all cars leave those with no brakes on or anything at all like that.

He said that because he couldnt hit the brakes, he attempted to swerve. Yet somehow he pushed my truck STRAIGHT back between 30 and 75 feet… and every single other witness said that he went straight into my truck and that he hit the gas.

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When Sarah’s parents claimed wrongfun death from our insurance, we gladly gave it to them. That’s why its included in insurance. That is what its there for. when they claimed it from his insurance… his insurance company had no idea what they were talking about because he had never told them. He then tried to fight it… and of course lost. He has numerous ticktes that were on the internet that my dad fought, but after a day or two they were all mysteriously removed and no more information could be found on him anywhere. The fact of the matter is that you have to live up to what you get for your actions. Do I plan on being involved in sueing him? Very much so now.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, September 16th, 2007 at 11:46 am and is filed under safety. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.