Cycling, traffic safety, traffic justice, and legal topics; energy, transit and transportion economics
10/11/2018 Thursday “morning”; victim 71 y.o. bicyclist Rick Ellwanger
Driver arrested suspected impairment. Wrong-way; hit-and-run; additional pedestrian victims.
On Friday afternoon police identified the suspect as 20-year-old Yanibra Moreno saying she’s being held on susp of 2nd degree murder and leaving the scene.
Continue reading “Wrong-way driver kills bicyclist on A-mountain”
According to Toole, et al, were it not for Forester, we would now have bike lanes everywhere. And not just bike lanes, the entire US would look something like Utrecht, Copenhagen, or Amsterdam. The March 2018 article is a review of a paper by Bill Schultheiss, Rebecca Sanders, and Jennifer Toole of Toole Design Group :
A Brief History of How American Transportation Engineers Resisted Bike Lanes
The “VC is only for old white males” is a trope. John Forester, author of Effective Cycling reiterates, e.g. in this August 2018 discussion thread (group membership required to see whole thread): Continue reading “Toole Design explains why we don’t have bike lanes in the US”
Autonomous Deliver Robots were enabled in Arizona in 2018, and further re-vamped the law in 2020.
Side-note:This all reminded me of the pizza delivery robot in an episode of Black Mirror.
As of Sept 2025, Doordash says they are rolling out “Doordash dot” for testing.
Polar labs based in Tempe/Mesa have been testing for some time (?early to mid-2024. At the time I saw them, pictured right, they were still accompanied by a “chaperone” following on an ebike).
Polar Labs appears to be supplying doordash.
9/23/2018 9:30am pedestrian 48 y.o. male Dana Machado was killed when a driver drove onto the sidewalk where the victim was walking his dog. Police arrested driver Richard Cruz on susp of DUI and are awaiting tox results.
Continue reading “Driver jumps curb, kills Mesa man on sidewalk”
Just what is an e-scooter? … what rules of the road apply?
For our purposes here, an e-scooter is an electric powered “kick” scooter that is sized to accommodate up to most adults; with weight limits being typically 220lbs. They travel on level ground up to about 15mph. A very popular model, the Xiaomi which is no longer sold at retail is said to be typical, and the basis for most of the scooter sharing companies, a la Bird, Lime, etc.
9/25/2018 ~ 4pm Victim 24y.o. male Daniel J. Clark. (ASDM says 9/26, not 9/25)
Virtually no details were released, other than the approx location of near the intersection of Germann Road and Airport Boulevard. There is a trail/canal crossing Germann Road there. Continue reading “Chandler police investigating collision that killed bicyclist”
ADOT has released Crash Facts 2017 in mid-year 2018 as usual; I received the database from them sometime in late August, as usual on a burned CD.
The graphical crash map has been updated and now contains 2009-2017 for both MV-bike and MV-ped crashes.
The Fatality Grid has been reconciled and contains some specifics on every bicyclist fatality in Arizona from 2009-2017 Continue reading “Arizona Crash Facts 2017”
There have been a couple of particularly violent & deadly head-on crashes on state routes recently. In both cases, there was no immediate speculation or cause of why the drivers crossed over and drove the wrong way.
In an Aug 30, 2018 incident occurred on a Thursday afternoon when the 47 y.o. male driver of a Ford SUV crossed over and collided head-on with a Suburban. Both drivers were killed as well as a toddler who was a passenger in the suburban. Continue reading “3 killed in fatal SUV crash on SR 89”
9/13/2018 ~7PM Bicyclist 40 y.o. female, Rebecca Benson
No details; Gilbert police announced at 7:14pm that “Officers are on scene investigating a fatal vehicle vs. bicycle collision on Baseline, east of Lindsay Road”. Continue reading “Fatal bicycle-vehicle crash restricts Baseline Road in Gilbert”
Coshise County attorney did come through with a criminal speeding charge on August 3rd; which Mosely either ignored or was unaware of (hmm, unaware). He eventually surrendered, plead not guilty, and was immediately released, with a trial scheduled for October 18. Well, at least he won’t be special much longer, as… Continue reading “Arrest Warrant issued for speeding lawmaker Mosely”
There were 32 reported bicyclist traffic fatalities in Arizona in 2017.
For a grid-view of each of the 32, see this google docs sheet, which cross-references everything.
16 of the incidents have individual articles about them (tagged 2017 cyclist fatality). Below is a narrative as much as can be determined from either a crash report, or simply the data; for each of the other 16 fatalities that are not other wise documented in an individual article. Continue reading “2017 Arizona Bicyclist Traffic Fatalities”
9/4/2018 “early morning hours”. Victim 20 y.o. Cody Nielsen.
The timeline is a bit confusing but apparently he was struck by a hit-and-runner; then sometime later (at least long enough to make a phone call) while apparently lying in the road (otherwise incapacitated?) was struck by a second driver, who remained on the scene. Police have not released any description of the hit-and-runner(?). Continue reading “El Mirage bicyclist killed in early morning hit and run”
There are tens of thousands of DUI arrests every year in Arizona; we rarely hear about any of these unless the person has some sort of celebrity, or unless they kill some people; examples of either case aren’t hard to find. Impaired drivers continue to account for a significant fraction of traffic fatalities (24% in 2016) amounting to hundreds of deaths in Arizona alone; victims are the drivers themselves, other drivers, passengers, bicyclists, and pedestrians. Continue reading “DUI and the beat goes on…”
7/3/2018 morning. 15 y.o. male bicyclist Mason Taylor died of injuries several days after a crash near Old Nogales Highway and Quail Crossing Boulevard, Sahuarita. Continue reading “Sahuarita bicyclist killed in crash”
