Cycling, traffic safety, traffic justice, and legal topics; energy, transit and transportion economics
Alexandra Mendez was sentenced last month in the hit-and-run death of a bicyclist in Glendale. A death she caused (felony 2).
A 4.5 year prison sentence is suprisingly stiff, indicating something else, besides just the hit-run went on.
Read the whole story here: hit-and-run-alert-driver-kills-man-on-northern-ave-glendale
Today I contacted Gov. Hobbs to urge her to veto Sen Rodger’s SB1234, which would further ban all forms of automated enforcement in the state. Including red-light signal, as well as school zone speeding enforcement.
The current status quo would simply allow local authorities to continue to use it where they feel it will improve safety. The state legislators have no business telling localities what to do. Republican’s claims that phot0-enforcement is unconstitutional are entirely unfounded, and unsupported; and their continuing to peddle that lie is shameful.
The justice system utterly failed everybody here. The only bright spot is he’ll be locked up and not driving his monster truck for a few years.
The NHTSA released traffic fatality figures, FARS, for calendar year 2021 a few weeks ago; to little fanfare and quite late as noted by Smart Growth America. Here’s an overview.
Arizona, once again, scores in several “top 10 lists” that nobody wants to be on, notably landing 8th on the list of top states for DUI-involved fatalities, despite being only the 14th most populous states. Arizona among top 10 states for drunken driving deaths. (That azcentral story, by the way, had an interesting DUI case inserted with bodycam footage of the Cochise County Attorney being arrested for extreme DUI back in February). Continue reading “FARS 2021: Arizona among top 10 states for drunken driving deaths”
4/19/2023 11a; Police say driver, 24 y.o. Rainer Perez Cordero, ran a red, striking and seriously injured bicyclist at the marked and signalized crosswalk at Central and Grand Canal. Police say the light for the driver had been red for eight seconds (curious how they would know that?). Continue reading “Bicyclist seriously injured by driver at Grand Canal crossing”
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Tues March 21, 2023. A driver is accused of making a bad left, causing a collision with another vehicle at East Speedway and North Country Club Road. “The impact forced the (other vehicle) into the bicycle lane and onto a sidewalk, hitting bicyclist Isaiah Williams Escalante,” killing him.
Police say the driver making the left, Matthew Lee Taleck, was impaired, and was arrested and booked by police on suspicion of manslaughter and related charges. The other driver was arrested on an unrelated issue.
Continue reading “Dead Tucson bicyclist is collateral damage; Driver(s!) arrested”
After appropriating $400MM of GENERAL FUNDS last season in order to widen the I-10 freeway between ~ just south of Phoenix to Casa Grande (towards Tucson); the legislature this year is on track to appropriate ANOTHER $360MM (also general funds) to the project, to backfill currently unavailable federal matching funds.
SB1065 appropriation; widening; I-10
Just to re-cap, general funds come from things like state sales taxes, property taxes, and income taxes. Notably, they do not come from gas-taxes, or other motor vehicle user fees. Continue reading “AZ Republican’s war on walking continues”
Goodyear police have arrested the driver who crashed into a large group of bicyclists Saturday 2/25/2023 around 8:15am; other traffic at that time would have been very light.
The location was on or near the bridge over Gila River on Cotton Lane, Goodyear, AZ, about a mile south of the intersection with MC86 Continue reading “Goodyear Police arrest driver who killed 2 and injured 11 more”
Please see:
cazbike.org/arizona-legislation-2023
Mixed in with tweaks that appear designed to increase car-use at the expense of everything else, there are some downright extremist proposals here, including one that prohibit ADOT from building bicycle paths.
Another common-thread in these bills are a group of state legislators, all from the majority party, that complain bitterly (possibly even sometimes rightly) that the feds are “cramming” things down their throats. Hypocracy reigns however, because this same group of legislators want to turn around and cram down their own ideas onto cities and towns. In the case of the Maricopa county transportation sales tax, these state legislators feel it’s ok to dictate how Maricopa county can spend Maricopa county citizens sales taxes. In the case of photo-enforcement, it’s these state legislators attempting to prevent cities and towns from enforcing traffic laws —
In other news: In early 2023, the GOP-led Arizona Senate, and GOP-led Arizona House has exempted itself from open-records laws
Legislature votes to exempt self from state records laws
The new rules allows (mandate?) destruction of legislator’s emails and texts after 90 days, and in the Senate, texts from legislator’s private devices/accounts are excluded altogether regardless of the nature of the content.
This is the opposite of transparancy.
2/22/2022 ~2PM. Tucson police says a suspected impaired driver killed a bicyclist on the SIDEWALK.
Names were not released as of 2 days later; and no follow up reporting can be found on this fatal incident that occurred 10 months ago (?). Continue reading “Police: Bicyclist dies after impaired driver struck him on Tucson sidewalk”
[UPDATE: council passed yet more rule changes. Dec 2024. Ordinance G-7334, min age for ebikes/scooters is not 16 AGAIN. Class 3 remains banned for anybody. ]
City of Phoenix passed an ebike law recently; I was unaware.
Arizona’s state ebike laws, which were passed in 2018, are essentially mum on ebikes vis a vis sidewalks, leaving them in the same somewhat strange boat as bicycles; “what is not prohibited is allowed”. And leads to a lot of confusion as local regulations, if any, regulate sidewalk cycling. See this long discussion of Arizona’s sidewalk laws including selected municipalities. Continue reading “Phoenix e-bike Ordinance (Class 3 Banned!)”
See pics and more at :.
here's another illustration — BL is narrow. Only about 3' clear space (BL symbol is 40", as you can see it overhangs well into the gutter) pic.twitter.com/BXwrSYm2Zj
— Az Bikelaw (@azbikelaw) October 24, 2022
Continue reading “Avenida del Yaqui project completed Oct 2022”
ADOT released Crash Facts 2021 in late September 2022 (a bit later than usual? and oddly, the database was missing a lot as recently as end of June; what is causing these huge delays? are police sitting on reports?
2021 was a very bloody year on Arizona’s roads and highways. 2020 had unusual traffic patterns due to pandemic [1], but comparing 2019 to 2021 deaths were up sharply for all person types (driver, passenger, bicyclists, pedestrian), about 20% overall. Continue reading “Arizona Crash Facts 2021”
Massive crash mid-morning Tuesday Aug 16, 2022 about 9:00 a.m. Warner Road between Juniper and Lakeshore (a.k.a. Dorsey Ln) in southern Tempe.
Police had eastbound traffic diverted most of the day, indicating serious injury or fatality.
It would appear high speeds are involved (the red vehicle pictured came to rest 200′ east of the intersection where the collision occurred) but no information seems to have been released by Tempe pd, no news, etc.
If you have any information, please leave a comment below. This is a little over a mile away from the spot on Rural Road where a driver lost control and killed a woman sitting at a bus stop earlier this year.
Below is what police told me a few days later; it’s odd it wasn’t (apparently?) sent to the news media, I also note that the name of driver who was arrested was not revealed (arrestees are usually named)… will need to get a police report, but that won’t be available for awhile.
Circumstances indicate police would looking at felony criminal charge.
The details, such as they are, don’t indicate which driver was arrested. However, besides impairment, the condition of the red vehicle, plus where it came to rest ( a couple hundred feet) indicates excessive speed.
———- Forwarded message ———
Date: Fri, Aug 19, 2022 at 2:47 PM
Subject: RE: Warner Rd Crash Fwd: Recent roadway fatalities and severe crashes
On Tuesday at approximately 9:50 a.m. Tempe PD worked a two-vehicle collision near E Warner Rd and S Dorsey Ln. One of the subjects was transported to the hospital with a serious physical injury that was not life-threatening. The collision caused the eastbound lanes on Warner Rd at Lakeshore Dr. to be closed for a bit. During the investigation on the scene, the driver of the other vehicle was placed under arrest; impairment was a factor.
Best,
Tempe Police Media Relations Unit
480-350-8311
480-341-0441 (cell)
policepio@tempe.gov
See comment below for another violent turning-error crash along Warner at Hardy in Feb 2023 that sent a vehicle out of control through the BL and up on the sidewalk; anyone walking or riding there would have been seriously injured or worse. See March 2023 Tucson fatality where a motorist left-turn error caused a 2-vehicle crash that resulted in the death of a cyclist when one of vehicles careeened onto the sidewalk.
UPDATE; sentencing happened 10/14/2022; See details at original story