Cycling, traffic safety, traffic justice, and legal topics; energy, transit and transportion economics
[Update: Sentencing here]
11/19/2014: 1 fatality (possibly a second, later) and several injuries when semi driver Brian Knoll drove into a line of stopped traffic on I-17 near Bell Road. He’s been charged with manslaughter, aggravated assault and endangerment; and entered a plea of not guilty to all charges on 12/3. Continue reading “Semi driver charged in I-17 fatality”
Check if this is a “traffic” fatality…. Crashes on private property “don’t count” as traffic crashes; however if the “unstabilized event” first occured on the public road, then it should.
Tuesday 12/2/2014 ~ 2:20am. Glendale Ave near 59th Ave, Glendale, AZ. Ford (appears to be an F-150) white pickup. Victim: Sean Brannen, male 47. Continue reading “Man dies after crashing truck into Glendale barbershop”
The term “accident” should never be used in connection with a vehicle collision.
Here is the reasoning. The terminology switch at NHTSA occurred years ago… Continue reading “Was that an accident, or a crash?”
I usually make a point of only noting incidents that happen in Arizona; but the DZBL thing is just ridiculous, plus at least the cyclist didn’t die in vain… (DZBL = Door Zone Bike Lane. That is: a bike lane placed next to parking where the parked car doors when open protrude into the bike lane) Continue reading “Door Zone Bike Lane removed after cyclist killed”
Below is re-printed from the Arizona Republic , the quiz accompanied their article on ADOT’s BSAP):
The Arizona Department of Transportation recommends strengthening state laws and adding more questions about bicycle safety in driver’s license tests. Many people don’t know the existing rules. How well do you?
(note these are suggested questions; not in actual use. Also note they do not follow the standard format of 3 answers)
[UPDATE; criminal case driver sentenced to 6.5 years prison, see below]
[There have been a couple recent items of interest documented at ourhtn.com, on Nov 29 there was a MV crash at intersection, and on Dec 1 a mobile speed trailer was set up] Continue reading “Cyclist dead in Ahwatukee car wreck”
This is a google fusion table, like the multi-year bike and ped crashmaps; but will include ALL types of crashes. Because of google limitation of 100,000 rows — yeah there are a lot of crashes! — this set will be limited to Maricopa County only for one year, 2013. There are almost 80,000 crashes per year in Maricopa County.
Victim 23/M Brandon Rutledge; 11/6/2014, no time specified, video indicates it was daylight. 59th Avenue & Roosevelt, Phoenix; A semi tractor (video shows no trailer) was turning right from 59th Ave (direction was not specified) on to Roosevelt. The bicyclist had been riding on the sidewalk on 59th and continued through crosswalk, though the direction is not specified. “(phoenix police) did say the bicyclist appears to have broken some traffic laws” may be incorrect, Phoenix PD tends to fault bicyclists riding in crosswalks despite it not being illegal. I have attempted repeatedly to point this out to Phoenix PD; e.g. when an 82-year-old driver left-crossed and killed an 11-year-old girl , they determined the driver had done nothing wrong.
Continue reading “Crosswalk cyclist killed in crash w/ turning semi driver”
[because of the obvious mis-codings (UNKNOWNS that are obviously known, in both asdm and FARS I’m tagging this missing hit and run, not because it was a hit and run, just to make it easier to find mis-coding ]
[ Update — as things turn out, this does appear in both asdm and FARS data for 2014, but i’m not sure why; since it was private roads? For comparison purposes, check out this one from Mesa 2013 that did not appear in the data]
11/7/2014 ~ morning time “(PCSO) said the man was riding eastbound on Hawks Wing Drive, when he was struck by a car heading southbound on Mooncrest Drive” Hawks Wing Dr, which has a stop sign, is on the stem of a T intersection with Mooncrest. [google maps]
The 79 y.o. male victim’s name is Richard Hayward Leon.
These are both residential streets; and the location is within a gated-community, which makes this highly unusual.
That it is on private streets probably means this is a “non-traffic” traffic fatality — that it won’t count towards traffic statistics, and will not be entered into ADOT traffic collision database, nor will it be reported to FARS when the time comes. This somehow seems wrong, so I want to make note of it and keep an eye out. Continue reading “79 y.o. Bicyclist killed in gated-community car crash North of Tucson”
About two weeks after MEDICAL MARIJUANA NO DEFENSE TO DUI CHARGE, another Arizona Court of Appeals Div 1 decision came down that is related to and as expected consistent with their earlier opinion. Please visit that link for more info and scroll down to “Another Court of Appeals Case 11/4/2014”.
Bicyclist Jesse A. Simon, 64 was killed Thursday 10/30/2014 ~ 1213pm on US 191 northbound ~ 3.5 miles north of US Highway 70; when he was clipped by the (right, i assume) mirror of a passing pickup (which may have been towing an RV trailer?) Continue reading “Bicyclist killed in Graham Co highway collision”
lovely. Police say Valerie Cervantez, 26, and an unidentified man were fleeing 10/30/2014 ~9pm in a Camaro; when they crossed over and crashed head on into victim Sylvester Romero who was retuning home from work (limo driver, one might guess) driving a Lincoln town car. Continue reading “Triple motorist fatal caused by fleeing driver”
11/1/2014 ~ 10:15pm, victim: Francisco Galvez. The location was on 1st Ave “near” Navajo Rd. 1St Ave is a multi-laned arterial-looking road; Navajo is a minor street that is offset at 1st Ave — in other words it makes two intersections with 1st. I’m not sure exatly what “near” means.
The report notes the bicyclist had a functioning headlight, and had a taillight but didn’t know if it was working (that should have no bearing on the angle collision described).
here’s the bicycletucson.com report.
Continue reading “Fatal bicyclist collision with Tucson PD unmarked vehicle”
The Chandler police force is reeling from the deaths of two officers only three days apart in unrelated traffic collisions…
(on-duty) City of Chandler Police “Officer David Payne, 37, was sitting on his police motorcycle at a red light at about 12:40 a.m. 10/31/2014 Friday when a car rear-ended him at the intersection of Chandler Boulevard and Pennington Drive.” Causing his death. “Police arrested Tempe resident Brian Yazzie, 31, on suspicion of manslaughter and hit-and-run for his role in the collision”. Oh yeah, plus his license was suspended in (and, presumably, since) 2010. — azcentral
Continue reading “Chandler officers killed in separate wrecks”
[2/19/2015; Officer Sweet plead guilty to one count of disorderly conduct. Sentenced to probation Mar 26, the judge said “Probably the greatest loss for [Sweet] is the loss of being on the police department and that he’ll never be a police officer again in the state of Arizona” ]
Road rage really does make some people do wacky stuff.
Oiy: an older gentleman (age? maybe 60?) and his neighbor were on their way to Monday morning Mass when they got into a road rage incident with the driver of van. The driver of the van, as things turn out, is an on-duty Phoenix Police officer transporting some prisoners in an unmarked van. Anyway, the police officer ended up pulling his gun; and he, the police officer, has since been arrested on suspicion of aggravated assault. This is a huge charge so it will be interesting to see how that turns out.
A couple of interesting points; the case apparently involves surveillance video (it would make sense the van has that) — this will be interesting video to watch.
The police officer after the “stop” drove off. The occupants of the other vehicle immediately made a police report — this is key to not let road-bullies slide, whoever they are.
The arrested police officer was 51-year-old Jeremy Sweet. In the other car were former state legislator “Ruiz and his passenger, fellow churchgoer Monica Rivera”.
azcentral — Phoenix man: Officer made me fear for my life
