Cycling, traffic safety, traffic justice, and legal topics; energy, transit and transportion economics
Spoiler alert: not an outlier in a good way.
This is an Forbes interview about an updated periodic international/global report on traffic safety, it appears to be based on up thru 2022 data Continue reading “Carnage On World’s Roads Drops Slightly, But U.S. Is An Outlier”
Yikes.
Suspected DUI? of course. Hit and Run? uh huh.
Arizona has tough DUI laws, right? Don’t count on it. If the driver is found to be impaired, expect nothing more than a misdemeanor DUI. Possibly misdemeanor hit-and-run (as apparently there were no injuries, unless you count the driver’s bump on the head). Prosecutors seem to have no imagination. EnDANGERment? Naw. Continue reading “Suspected DUI driver crashes into Ahwatukee home”
2025-02-04 ~130p
Driver eastbound 10th St near Maple, Tempe. These are residential streets inside of a neighborhood just west of ASU campus, quite dense with bicyclists and pedestrians. The posted speed limit in would have to assume is 25mph.
Check out complete list of Tempe bicyclist fatalities since 2009 here. Continue reading “ebicyclist killed near 10th and Maple, Tempe”
2025-02-02 8:17am
Prescott Valley PD posted on their facebook:
… on Sunday, February 2, 2025, at 8:17am involving a bicycle rider at the intersection of Viewpoint and Spouse Drive. The incident occurred when a male cyclist traveling north on Viewpoint did not yield to a motorist traveling east on Spouse. The cyclist was not wearing a helmet at the time of the a*******. (I censored the a-word. PVPD: please #crashnotaccident. I’m not a fan of the helmet comment, either). Continue reading “Bicyclist killed in crash at all-way stop in Prescott Valley”
I find any hit-and-run abhorrent. A hit-and-run driver involved in any traffic crash with any injury is a criminal felon; and if the injury is serious or results in death, it’s a serious felony (class 3 or 2). It’s worth pointing out that hit-and-run is a crime for the driver regardless of who caused the crash (i.e. which party had the right of way is irrelevant, except for sentencing).
The background is I noticed here and there over the years what seemed to me to be an odd listing in the traffic database of a fatal bicyclist, and an unknown vehicle with unknown everything else (direction, lane, lighting, etc etc) except for bicyclist demographic and it usually had a location, but was NOT listed as a hit-and-run. I inquired about a few of them and the story was always something like the coroner(I think?) submitted something somehow to traffic records. I brushed it off as something that happens very rarely; some sort of freak occurrence. However. It turns out there are dozens of such cases every year., unsurprisingly most of them are pedestrian. Continue reading “More about missing Hit and Runs”
Book “Eat Like a Pig, Run Like a Horse” subtitled “How Food Fights Hijacked Our Health and the New Science of Exercise” by Anastacia Marx de Salcedo
The premise of the book is that your health isn’t affected by what you eat (and weigh) anywhere near as much as cardiovascular fitness; in other words, a sedentary lifestyle is the fundamental problem.
The reference to “food fights” refers to the idea popularized by Ancel Keys, et.al in the 1950s and 60s that low fat (and in particular, eliminating saturated fat) diet is the key (pardon the pun) to good health have been largely discredited. Continue reading “Eat Like a Pig, Run Like a Horse”
A misdemeanor criminal case against the driver in this strange Oct 2024 incident is moving forward in Tempe Municipal Court…
Next Court Date: PRE-TRIAL CONFERENCE 1/22/2025 01:30
2024-03-02 1:25pm. location: Queen Creek Road, near Higley.
Driver “veered off” into the bike lane and killed John Pomeroy; the driver was arrested several months later (see news story, below) based on toxicology results which showed an unstated amount of alcohol along with a prescription drug. However since that time the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office has declined to bring charges for unknown reasons…
Continue reading “Driver drank alcohol before crash that left bicyclist dead in Gilbert, police say”
2024-11-02 “early morning”. Mesa: Southern Ave just west of Gilbert Rd.
An SUV driver for unknown reasons left the roadway and destroyed his vehicle, seriously injuring a bicyclist who was on the sidewalk at the time.
Continue reading “SUV driver loses control drives on sidewalk causing serious injury”
Driver arrested in the killing of PV teenager Gabriel Grande this past November. Full Story.
UPDATE: council passed yet more rule changes. Dec 2024. Ordinance G-7334, sets a new minimum age for ebikes/scooters.
Class 3 remains banned city-wide. See details here.
The city continues to refuse to deal with things like the motorized play vehicle ordinance which bans, e.g. those little battery powered toys that you’ll see toddlers using. It also (according to the city) effectively bans motorized gas powered bicycles city-wide. Continue reading “Phoenix changes ebike law (yes, again)”
This story is, um, interesting. These are not just felonies, assault on a minor is a going-to-PRISON level felony. It will be interesting to see what county prosecutors cook up, probably nothing, as we shall see. Continue reading “Fountain Hills man accused of assaulting kids on e-bikes”
11/12/2024 around 5:30p.
14-year old was retuning home from a MTB ride was struck and killed on Viewpoint drive near Manley, Prescott Valley.
A specific location wasn’t mentioned; from some of the new video, it’s in an area similar to this where the road is 1 lane in each direction with a very small paved shoulder, and then some gravel. Continue reading “Driver arrested: Teenager killed in PV by pickup driver”
Interesting in terms of what this might mean for autonomous vehicles; tesla has been oft criticized for relying on cameras, rather than other systems (e.g. lidar) that can “see” in other conditions.
It also has a link to Arizona as one of the four incidents was a fatality on I-17 in November of 2023. It was described in detail in, of all places, the Hindustan Times (sourced to the AP) article (and not, e.g. in the Arizona Republic?).
Sun glare seems more an excuse than anything else. If “you” (that’s either a person driving or some autonomous system) can’t “see”, you must slow down to avoid colliding with whatever might be in front of you. Continue reading “NHTSA’s investigation into Tesla “full self-driving” has link to Arizona”
10/6/2024 Sunday morning 7:45 College Ave near 15th St, Tempe. This is a very low speed (posted 25mph) collector street, with unusually wide bike lanes (6 feet or more?) here. Leading directly to the ASU campus, about a quarter mile away.
The driver of an SUV ran over 5 bicyclists on College Ave, hospitalizing several of them, with serious but not life-threatening injuries. Note to AzFamily caption writers: the vehicle was under human control, a driver ran over 5 people. Continue reading “Driver Arrested: runs into 5 Bicyclists on College Ave, Tempe”