Cycling, traffic safety, traffic justice, and legal topics; energy, transit and transportion economics
In last week’s (8/30/2019 afternoon) serious crash a pedestrian crossing Broadway was hospitalized after being struck by a driver. Victim-blamers will joyfully point out that the crash occurred “near Hardy Drive outside of the crosswalk”. Jaywalker! Worse yet, the driver — the “other victim” here — is being persecuted for being suspected of DUI. — Driver arrested for DUI after hitting pedestrian in Tempe Continue reading “Two girls hurt in Tempe crosswalk crash”
Aug 20, 2019 ~ 8PM. The crash occurred near the intersection of East Frontage Road and North Starlight Drive, Prescott Valley. There were no details on the manner of collision.
Hit and run, bicyclist suffered serious injuries and died several days later on Aug 26. The suspect driver was book on suspicion of aggravated assault, etc.; hinting the police believe the driver was impaired and caused the crash. Now that the victim has died, charges would presumably be upgraded to a homicide.
Continue reading “Bicyclist dies after injuries in hit-run Prescott Valley crash”
ADOT has released Crash Facts 2018 in the later part of June (of 2019), as usual; this year and I did not order CDs but rather accessed the raw data online sometime in July (it will in relatively rare cases be updated after this).
The graphical crash map has been NOT updated and so continues to have years 2009-2017 ; the tool used to present the map, Google fusion tables, is being discontinued end of 2019, and I need to find a replacement.
The Fatality Grid has been reconciled and contains some specifics on every bicyclist fatality in Arizona from 2009-2018, and ongoing as discovered.
Message to my loyal azbikelaw readers: Most of the time, I don’t create a new article, but rather add information to a related existing article; for example a new bike lane was added right near my house, and I placed info about it in the article about shoehorning.
SO FROM EARLY 2019 ONWARD PLEASE SEE @azbikelaw ‘s TWITTER FEED FOR UPDATE NOTIFICATIONS. (and note that a twitter account is not necessary, though if you do have an account please “follow” @azbikelaw and you’ll receive notifications via twitter)
E-mail subscribers still receive notifications as usual but only when a new article is posted, not when I add infomation to an existing article.
This comes about a year after Arizona Cardinals General Manager Steve Keim was arrested and plead guilty to extreme DUI, emphasis added:
“The Chandler Police Department released a report on Wednesday afternoon detailing the traffic stop and arrest of Ron Minegar, the Arizona Cardinals executive vice president and chief operating officer, Saturday night on suspicion of driving under the influence… A 911 caller alerted police about a white Chevrolet Tahoe swerving and possibly speeding up to 60 mph, according to the report.
An officer stopped Minegar around 11:30 p.m. near Pecos Road and Arizona Avenue for speeding, failure to drive within one lane of traffic and driving within the bicycle lane “— azcentral 8/14/2019 Continue reading “Another Cardinals exec arrested susp of DUI”
There is nothing remarkable about this intersection; it is a prototypical arterial-arterial signalized intersection like many others in the Phoenix Metro area — this one is in the City of Tempe. Both streets are high-speed (45mph posted maximum limit); with two through lanes, a bike lane in each direction; in addition each approach the bike lane discontinues ~ 250′ from the intersection where the space flares to become a dedicated right turn only lane, additionally all approaches have a dedicated right turn only lane. The signal is timed, and there is a demand, leading, left turn arrow on all approaches. Continue reading “McClintock And Warner Wreck”
Hit and run. Police are treating this as a suspected aggravated assault; according to the silent witness flyer
Continue reading “Police: Pickup truck driver deliberately hit stalled motorcycle”
3/12/2019 A hit and run driver struck a bicyclist along West Ajo Way near Interstate 19. The bicyclist 70 y.o. David Ramirez died in July of injuries suffered.
Readers of these pages will recall the justice system in Arizona fails to treat hit and run drivers as serious criminals, despite it being a serious felony.
Also as a statistical note, this death will not “count” statistically as a traffic fatality because the victim died more than 30 days after the incident; these and other non-fatality-fatalities get recorded below the line in the spreadsheet
Continue reading “Tucson bicyclist dies months after hit-and-run collision”
7/9/2019 ~5PM McDowell Road near Higley; police say an eastbound driver drifted into the very wide bike lane and killed bicyclist Scott Purdie who was also eastbound. The driver was arrested due exhibiting signs of impairment.
Continue reading “PD: Impaired driver hit, killed man riding bicycle along Mesa street”
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”