incident 1pm Thursday March 20, 2014 on a “private access road” near 75th Avenue and McDowell Road in Phoenix . Hints from the news story indicate this will likely be a non-traffic death (occurred “on a private access-road”) — meaning this could be one of the many automobile deaths that aren’t counted in the official statistics. Around 32,000 Americans are killed each year in traffic collisions –according to official statistics — how many more are there? [UPDATE: contrary to what I wrote at the time, this incident DID make it into FARS, incident 40170 ; I didn’t look these up but PEDCTYPE: 770 / PEDSNR: 4a / PEDCGP: 750; also of note, the PBPTYPE was “Pers Convey”]
No names released (so will be, of course, difficult to follow up on); only ages: dead is a 3-year-old boy, slightly injured is a female babysitter; the driver is a 22-year-old man. The business about drugs seems highly speculative and the likely investigation outcome will find this to have been an unavoidable “accident” — meaning for some reason the driver, despite what obviously must have been limited sight-distances, wasn’t expected to simply drive a little more slowly. Why not?
A 3-year-old boy was struck and killed by a vehicle in a Walmart parking lot in the west Valley on Thursday afternoon. Police said the incident occurred at 1 p.m. on a private access-road at the Desert Sky Esplanade at 75th Avenue and McDowell Road in Phoenix. The toddler was in a stroller being pushed by his babysitter. Sgt. Trent Crump said the babysitter, who lives in the area, was leaving the shopping center when she attempted to cross a private road maintained by the property’s owners. A 22-year-old man stopped at a nearby stop sign and continued on, striking the woman and child… Crump said it does not appear from witness accounts that the driver saw the pair, or that the babysitter saw the vehicle before it struck them. Police were investigating the driver for impairment and reports from at least one witness that indicated he may have had drugs in his vehicle. Initial tests indicate the driver was not under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time of the accident, but investigators were awaiting for a search warrant for the vehicle…
For other stroller deaths see driver-cited-in-death-of-baby-in-stroller, 3-year-old-squashed-to-death-in-crosswalk. A modest proposal? Obviously we could eliminate these deaths by outlawing strollers. (sorry i couldn’t resist).