Category: safety

Girl narrowly escapes injury after driver slams into her home

Seriously? Seriously, how often does stuff like this happen? A driver slams through the wall of a home and into the bedroom of a girl who’s sleeping just inches away. The suspect/driver Daniel Sanchez Patino fled, but of course.

Freak “accident”? Lots of freaks out there… how about: Driving into a classroom (killing 1, injuring 11), driving into a Seven-11 and killing a shopper, walking out the front door of CVS (one dead), or taking a break out in front of the Walgreens where you work (one dead), or rammed at a bus stop (2 dead, one injured), or just out for a stroll on the sidewalk (one dead) / or a jog on sidewalk (one dead). I could go on.  Oiy Veigh.

Continue reading “Girl narrowly escapes injury after driver slams into her home”

Report: Truck driver was looking at phone in deadly crash

[July 2015 Jorge Espinoza was sentenced to 6 years prison ]

[2/6/2015 A Yuma county jury found the driver guilty of negligent homicide, a class 4 felony, along with several other endangerment charges. yumasun.com I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that it’s unprecedented for a prosecutor to bring, and get conviction, on any homicide charge against a driver not suspected of being   impaired. Note that the “defense had also argued that is not against the law to use a cell phone while driving” claim did not win the day; he was convicted anyway. ]

[Update Sept 2014; trial should have been going on but has been delayed due to defense attorney’s medical condition reports the yumasun.com ]

Police and prosecutors have released info regarding why they decided to charge the truck driver who caused a wreck that killed DPS Officer  Tim Huffman near Yuma on May 6, 2013 with a string of felonies including 2nd degree Murder.  (see Police work is dangerous, scroll down a bit, for earlier reports) Excerpts from Report: Truck driver was looking at phone in deadly crash: Continue reading “Report: Truck driver was looking at phone in deadly crash”

Fatal pedestrian crashes reach record level in City of Tucson

speedwayAndAlvernonCarSewer
Speedway and Alvernon — whole lotta lanes! Seven y.o. Simon Foster was killed while crossing here in a crosswalk, with a green light
speedwayAndAlvernonCarSew
Speedway and Alvernon — intersections the size of parking lots.

Fresh on the heels of Another-Speedway-crosswalk-ped-death (10/20/2013); the azstarnet.com is reporting ped fatal in the City of Tucson are at record levels: “Twenty-one people have died when they were walking or hit by a vehicle since the beginning of the year (the year is 2013, as of late-October). The average for the Tucson area is 15 pedestrian deaths per year”. I doubt fancy engineering, like HAWKs, can have much of an overall effect — rather the Tucson area, like the Phoenix metro area, is simply Dangerous by Design. Things like a handful of extra blinkie crosswalks are merely a band-aid over the (apparently worsening) problem. “transportation agencies typically prioritize speeding traffic over the safety of people on foot… Pedestrian fatalities have fallen at only half the  rate of motorists, dropping by just over 14 percent during the period (2000-2009). In many places, including 15 of the country’s largest metro areas, pedestrian fatalities have actually increased even as overall traffic deaths fell”. This preference for extra lanes and speeding-up motorists it detrimental to the safety of motorists, pedestrians and bicyclists — all road users!

Another Speedway crosswalk ped death

Crosswalk ped death of Matthew Bono 10/20/2013, initially hit-and-run; driver returned and was arrested on suspicion of 2nd degree murder (dui). The crash was at East Speedway and North Richey.

This death comes just a couple of weeks and less than 1/2 mile away from after another Speedway crosswalk ped death “…Simon Foster, 7, whose father, Don, took him and his sister, Charlie, 5, to dinner at McDonald’s at East Speedway and North Alvernon Way the evening of Sept. 29. Afterward, as they were crossing Speedway, on a green light and in the crosswalk, a driver simply turned right (on red) and plowed into them, police reports say. That driver, 31-year-old Saylee Solo,…”. Sol was later charged with causing a death w/moving violation, a misdemeanor. Continue reading “Another Speedway crosswalk ped death”

Tucson bicyclist killed on Golf Links Road

Crossing doesn’t sound correct… how can an eastbound unit that crashed into a westbound unit be “crossing”? Also the area has raised medians; making crossing difficult other than at intersections; but the police/fire describe it as happening on a particular road near another, i.e. not at an intersection. (updated from adot crash data: this was just a staight-up intersection crash; cyclist failed to yield at a, i guess, stop sign)….

10/5/2013 “evening” (dark, one guesses?) E Golf Links Rd and Calle Yucatan.

Tucson bicyclist dead after riding in front of SUV

A 71-year-old man (Thomas Ferrer) riding a bicycle in Tucson has been killed after riding directly into the path of an oncoming SUV Tucson police say the man was struck Saturday evening while crossing a major thoroughfare on the city’s south side. He was taken to a hospital but did not survive. Police spokeswoman Sgt. Maria Hawke says investigators found the bicyclist was riding across east golf Links road and rode right into the path of the westbound sport utility vehicle. The SUV driver wasn’t hurt.

Is it really 20 times more dangerous?

I’ve been seeing, more often lately it seems, fairly bold numerical statements about relative bike traffic safety; so to take this one from peopleforbikes for example (my emphasis added): “The problem is particularly glaring here in the United States, where bike injury and fatality rates are roughly 20 times those of the cycling-friendly countries of western Europe“. Continue reading “Is it really 20 times more dangerous?”

Arizona Bicyclist and Ped Crash Map

Volunteer Needed

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URGENT: Google has announced the tool used to present the crash maps, below, called “Fusion Tables” is being discontinued Dec 3, 2019.
Azbikelaw is looking for a volunteer familiar with GIS and web-presentation to help effect transition to something else.

Please see this article for more info. Below is the historical data and procedures.

Continue reading “Arizona Bicyclist and Ped Crash Map”

Driver slams into day spa; 1 dead, 4 go hospital

[Updated; as expected/suspected this death and injuries DO NOT appear in official crash records from ADOT, nor will they appear in the FARS when that is released. See this comment for how I checked asdm]

9/27/2013. A story like this, besides being a tragedy, tends to make headlines (even going national,  usatoday.com story) but, Seriously, how often does stuff like this happen? Apparently regularly; like the shopper killed inside a Tucson convenience store in July…. or… 11-year old boy dead in a Phoenix parking lot in May… or … 2 Dead in Phoenix after pickup slams into bus stop  in March… or… 1 Dead at a Peoria Walgreens sitting on the bench in front of store in 2010… This is just what i noticed reading the paper; These were all in the recent past, just in Arizona. This is not a complete list! ha. Continue reading “Driver slams into day spa; 1 dead, 4 go hospital”

Should Warner Road bike lane have a “Combined” Turn Lane?

A standard sign with placard, “legalizes” thru-bike usage.

it is a common occurrence — familiar to every bicyclist — where you can be riding along a perfectly nice bike lane only to have it disappear for various reasons.

Bike lanes are highly prized for making cycling “more comfortable”; so I think it’s safe to say disappearing bike lanes would be considered quite stressful, and an impediment to cycling for many cyclists.

Disappearing Bike Lane; Warner Rd at Hardy Dr, Tempe, AZ

I have, over the past year, had occasion to regularly ride along Warner Road in Tempe (this area is sometimes referred to as “south” Tempe. Here’s a map of the general vicinity) between I-10 (the city limit) and McClintock Drive; it’s about 3.5 miles. The road is very much an arterial road with two fast through lanes (45mph, if i recall correctly) plus a bike lane each way plus some sort of middle lane throughout (it’s usually a TWLTL; two way left turn lane; it becomes a left turn lane at major intersections). The difficulty is at every intersection where there is a right turn only lane, the bike lane is dropped ~ 250′ from the intersection. This dropping occurs asymmetrically at some, but not all, of the major intersections. It is most prominent westbound: the lane drops at McClintock, Rural, Kyrene, Hardy, and Priest Drive. That is FIVE TIMES in three miles! Continue reading “Should Warner Road bike lane have a “Combined” Turn Lane?”

Hit-Run on pro cycling training ride in Tucson

[UPDATED 1/14/2014: according to tucsonvelo.com the driver was sentenced to 7 days in county on an apparent plea-deal that drops most of the charges. There is a civil suit working in Pima County court]

This one is so weird, i don’t want to lose track of it…. It’s been almost 7 months, what’s the deal? From tucsonvelo.com:

“One cyclist with the Jamis-Hagnes Berman cycling team was sent to the hospital and several others were injured during an assault by a Tucson motorist on Friday ( ~ 2/22/2013 ) morning around 11 a.m., according to a team rider … A Pima County Court record search identifies the (suspect) as Rodney Owen Kinkade Jr., 57. The court record lists it as an assault occurring on Friday and matches the crime map case number”

Continue reading “Hit-Run on pro cycling training ride in Tucson”

SENTENCING: Barrow’s Neurologist killed by hit-and-run Driver

[Update 2018 & 2019: Linsk got pulled over AGAIN for driving on a suspended/revoked license; wtf? Is this guy a bad driver or what? I got a ticket once THIRTY YEARS AGO. Anyway, TR2019-139024 File Date: 8/19/2019; McDowell Mountain Justice Court; guilty.
TR2018-156438 File Date: 11/20/2018; West Mesa Justice Court; speeding and no license; dismissed on motion of prosecutor (why?) ]

[ Update 2014: Linsk got pulled over and arrested AGAIN after serving his trivial sentence, 12/17/2014: Driving on suspended license: TR2014159525000, East Mesa Justice Court , a citation for unsafe lane change (presumably the reason he was pulled over) were dismissed. ] Continue reading “SENTENCING: Barrow’s Neurologist killed by hit-and-run Driver”

GIS, mapping, crash reports vs. ASDM

Some notes on mapping using the latitude/longitude; and the ASDM (Adot Safety Data Mart) dataset.

Here is a detailed breakdown of a crash chosen more-or-less at random (I wanted to choose crashes that were *not* at intersections) that occurred 2012-10-12 at a driveway just east of 51st Ave on Indian School Rd. (if the link doesn’t work use 33.494971/-112.167771, the lat/long specified in ASDM). It is ADOT incident number 2672854, Phoenix file number 12001836231 (though it was listed as 201836231 in ASDM). Continue reading “GIS, mapping, crash reports vs. ASDM”

No, Phoenix area drivers are not ‘safe’

The news today was almost too much to bear.

You might recall the absurd story from a couple of weeks ago (the news story ran 8/6/2013) azcentral.com where an unlicensed(!) driver was driving a minivan full of kids; “The 16-year-old was driving his six brothers and sisters westbound on Southern Avenue when the minivan collided head-on with a passenger car. The van had attempted to pass a car on the right shoulder and overcorrected, sending the van into oncoming traffic, where it was hit by a sedan, witnesses said”.

Yes, it gets weirder, yesterday (8/29/2013)… I’ll just give you the headline, Phoenix police: Girl, 6, dies after brother, 8, drives car into pole.

And for good measure, today besides that shocker, there were all manner of Arizona automobile-mayhem stories: $50M claim filed in crash that killed Tucson boy; it involved an on-duty Pima County Sheriffs Deputy. 10-year-old Xavier Arturo Sanchez died July 15, 2013 when he was hit by a deputy. I don’t know anything other than to note that “Tucson police investigators decided against submitting the case to the county Attorney’s Office because they felt the circumstances didn’t warrant criminal charges against the deputy” except to say, they probably ought to do more to avoid the appearance of impropriety; though i suppose TPD is supposed to be independent of PSCO. (far higher on the impropriety scale: see this one, involving a speeding PCSO deputy)… … … Road Rage, oh this it always fun: a PCSO deputy was the victim of apparent road rage: “Pima County Sheriff’s officials say 38-year-old Eric Santos ‘deliberately rammed and pushed the officer’s vehicle’ Wednesday night on Interstate 10″… … oh and the usual mayhem, this one seems tame by comparison: “Impairment may be factor in (double)fatal crash” in a 1PM high-speed collision at 43rd Ave and Indian School.

Phoenix high for driver safety?

EVERY YEAR we get treated to this stupidity: Allstate study ranks metro Phoenix high for driver safety. The story appears to be ripped right from a press release. Supposedly metro Phoenix has “safe” drivers because the number of claims is low. I’m sure this is all statistically true — unfortunately it does NOT translate into safe traffic (which normal people measure in terms of deaths and injuries), here is a comparison from last year’s Allstate data. In short, other cities that have far “worse” drivers, according to Allstate, have far better traffic safety records. It would seem to me this indicates something it terribly wrong with Arizona’s transportation infrastructure; we have surface streets built for hi-speed/hi-volume first and safety last.

Are cars dangerous? We all know it’s not the cars per se; but obviously we’re not doing enough to control their use.