Cycling, traffic safety, traffic justice, and legal topics; energy, transit and transportion economics
June 27, 2019 time unspecified. 4 y.o. boy Royal ( parents: Veronica Sandoval & Eric Chavez) killed by pickup in Mesa; not many details. Possibly backing? no location listed; it sort of implies it was near his home.
Gofundme page, JusticeForRoyal, to help the victim’s parents, Veronica Sandoval & Eric Chavez, with expenses.
June 22, 2019; time unspecified; A hit and run driver driving on the shoulder killed a 77 y.o. male bicyclist. US95 near County 15th Street., Somerton AZ (Yuma County)
This is possibly a #drifted error, though without more details it’s hard to know; the driver may well have been drunk and lost control.
Crash occurred southbound Cooper, just N of Ray Road, Chandler, AZ — from the photo in the news article below and some ABC15 raw video the vehicle appears to be stopped at this driveway. The visible damage is the right front corner and right side. Continue reading “Man badly hurt in Chandler collision; succumbs to injuries”
6/4/2019 Tues morning
The new report says that police say moto-bicyclist Johnny Lee Nero was SB on 16th Ave and collided with a westbound driver on Buckeye after the moto-bicyclist failed to yield at the intersection.
Note that persons riding a motorized bicycle are NOT bicyclists; they are categorized statistically as drivers of a motor vehicle (moped or motorcycle).
Continue reading “Phx: man killed in motorized bicycle collision on Buckeye”
6/3/2019 morning peak time. Another* one. This time the NW corner of Ray and 48th St; a high-volume hi-speed arterial intersection. Hopefully no one was killed; but of course that would just be luck — the car drove right over the sidewalk to eliminate the pole.
This is/will cause major traffic disruptions; it’s still blocked a day later and the workmen told me it is likely to take a week to 10 days.(it was ultimately 8 days). The right-hand westbound thru lane on Ray will be blocked until the project is finished; and the Southbound RTO and bike lanes are also blocked. Continue reading “Driver jumps curb and knocks down signal pole”
DUI has a new aggravation — wrong way driving — as of 2018. Presumably added in the recent years as wrong-way driving, which is almost always associated with impairment, seems to have become more common. (NTSB says official — FARS — stats are only 50%, however because of non-testing all drivers, the actual figure is “as high as” 75%)
This popped up in the news a few days ago; when police say driver Charles Tack was DUI, driving the wrong way, and involved in a (non-injury) collision on the Loop 202 freeway near I-10. Continue reading “DUI and wrong-way driving”
4/23/2019 ~ 8:30PM Pedestrian walking along an unmarked crosswalk struck in center of road by a driver who was swerving around other traffic who had stopped in compliance with the law; to allow the pedestrian to cross in the unmarked crosswalk at the intersection of 59th Avenue and McLellan Road. Continue reading “Police: Pedestrian in crosswalk killed by suspected distracted driver in Glendale”
4/23/2019 ~ 11pm victim Thomas Taraba and another person were walking on the sidewalk along McDowell Road near 37th Street. Police say river 20-year-old Zachary Showers was the driver; he was arrested on suspicion of DUI
“According to court documents, Taraba was thrown 75 feet” indicating the driver’s speed was very fast, perhaps too fast for any city street. 12news.com. a few more details at fox10news.
Continue reading “Vision Zero PHX, was: PD: Driver kills man on sidewalk”
The political intrigue is fascinating; was Mesnard’s distraction bill just an attempt to derail a cellphone restriction? Did citizens of Arizona really have to wait 12 years for this — even as traffic safety got worse-and-worse — only because Farley was a Democrat and the legislature is controlled by Republicans? Continue reading “Arizona to finally restrict cellphone-use while driving.”
Just awful. Sunday afternoon 4/14/2019, residential street. Multiple serious injuries. The 3 y.o. has a fractured skull and is hospitalized. Continue reading “Family mowed down in Tempe hit-and-run in front of their home”
Warner-Elliot Loop and Jicarilla. Again.
This is also very near the spot where another out-of-control driver inexplicably left the loop and drove up on the sidewalk, killing jogger Rene Karlin in 2011.
For more local shenanigans (more out-of-control drivers, killing busstops, light poles, knocking down walls and so forth), click on the ahwatukee tag.
Traffic incidents are particularly deadly for law enforcement officers; see the ODMP
3/21/2019 ~ 8:30am: This is a pedestrian fatality. Continue reading “Phoenix police officer killed on the scene of another crash”
Police think the driver may have been impaired in this 3/12/2019 morning incident. Also, for some reason they are protecting the identity of the suspect. Maybe will be non-traffic? (for now it’s tagged). Continue reading “Driver Plows into home; may have been impaired”
No one was hurt only by dumb luck. Seriously, how often does this happen?
There seems to be some disagreement over the exact number of vehicles involved (only 9 or was it 10?) after the driver losing control and crashing into many other vehicles, in some cases obviously totaled. Continue reading “Huge Pileup in Ahwatukee Parking Lot”
The media is flooded with reporting like this: Scooter crashes in the Valley are causing serious injuries to riders and their wallets. they all follow the same pattern of “reporting”, they mention a few anecdotes, and a not-useful collection of statistics. Continue reading “Are Scooters Dangerous?”