Cycling, traffic safety, traffic justice, and legal topics; energy, transit and transportion economics
Tag: drifted
Tag “drifted” means a motorist leaves a general purpose travel lane and strikes a bicyclist from behind, typically either in a bike lane or shoulder
Also see tag, strike-from-behind which is wher a motorist strikes a bicyclist from behind in the same general-purpose travel lane (not a bike lane, or shoulder), excludes unlit/unreflectored bicyclists; tag strike-from-behind-unlit
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.
The location wasn’t released, but River Road appears to be a divided arterial road with two lanes in each direction plus wide bike lanes; in addition to dedicated turn pockets.
This is an outline of each 2016 fatality that was unknown to me — or that could not be found by reverse-googling — until the database was released in mid-2017. See the full 2016 grid here.
There are 10 such incidents, not counting two additional exceedingly poorly-documented incidents that were also nowhere to be found in media report. That means that of total of 30 fatal incidents (31 fatalities, as one was double) in 2016, 18 were reported in the media while 12 were not — or at least not that I can find.
[This is an old case: it happened in Tucson before 2009, but it has a bit of a twist… ]
December 1, 2006: A driver plows into the rear end of a bicyclist in a Tuscon-area Bike Lane (or probably more accurately, a shoulder), killing him. The young woman driving is drunk, very drunk. She tried for manslaughter, gets convicted of the lesser included charge of negligent homicide by the jury; here’s the twist, a phone call from jail while awaiting sentencing (from what i remember, all jail phone calls are monitored/recorded) causes her to receive the max sentence: Continue reading “Spewing Hatred”
Sun 3/12/2017 ~ 9pm. Bicyclist Mark Dickson was killed by a hit-and-run driver in the area of 40th St & Bell Rd. BOLO silver newer Ford Fusion.
Other news reports mention the hit-and-run driver was likely speeding “…leading investigators to believe that the driver was traveling at a high rate of speed”
This article is a catch-all for any reported Arizona bicyclist traffic fatality that are otherwise unknown — no media, or any other, coverage could be found; they are only listed as statistics in the crash database.
I don’t know what “criminal charges are possible” means; but once more-serious criminal charges have been ruled out — cases where a same-direction motorist drifts causing a rear-end collsion with a bicyclist in a bike lane (or a shoulder), on its face, should trigger a misdemeanor “causing death by moving violation” charge, see arizona-already-has-a-vulnerable-user-law
June 7, 2016 ~ 5:30A 73 y.o. bicyclist Calvin Ray Sapp was killed after being struck by a hit-and-run driver in a bike lane — southbound on Higley Road midway between Ocotillo and Chandler Heights roads. A vehicle matching the description was found a short time later and a suspect was arrested. A later news story that evening said that the suspect “…told police he fell asleep and didn’t know what he hit. Officers said the bike and victim were dragged about 80 yards”. And carried some more-graphic pictures of the smashed in windshield. They also identified the Phoenix Police officer credited with finding the suspect vehicle. Continue reading “Bicyclist killed in Gilbert hit-and-run”
4/14/2016 Bicyclist Donald Neu was killed riding westbound Riggs Road near Arizona Ave when he was struck by a driver who “drifted” into the rather wide, designated BL.
Note that, according to that description of events, the driver has “failed to keep proper lane” (§28-729) and should be charged with 28-672, a criminal misdemeanor — assuming other more-serious charges are ruled out. Are police (in this case, MSCO) aware of this? In this triple serious injury, they were. See more about 28-672 .
28-735 is all well-and-good, and as far as I know can be “stacked” on 28-672, but it (28-735) is nothing more than a fine.
Arizona already has a law that functions very much like a “Vulnerable User Law“, it is applicable in virtually all cases where a driver causes a collision resulting in a pedestrian serious injury/fatality; and in many cases where the victim is a bicyclist.
[ UPDATE: in 2018 the legislature increase penalities for the law referenced below; see 28-672, 675 & 676 ]
On March 3, 2012 bicyclist Sean Mccarty was riding in a bike lane in north Scottsdale when a motorist for unknown or unstated reasons swerved or drifted partially from Lane 2 into the bike lane, striking and killing the bicyclist. Possible criminal actions on the part of the driver such as excessive speed, or impairment were quickly ruled out by investigators, and the motorist was very quickly issued two traffic citations, 28-735 (the “three foot” rule) and another for 28-815D (driving in a bike lane prohibited); and paid a fine of $420 [1]. Very similar situations occurred in the fatal collisions of both Allen Johnson in Pima County, and Jerome Featherman in Green Valley. Continue reading “Arizona already has a “Vulnerable User Law””
A Tucson bicyclist was struck from behind and seriously injured 2/14/2016 ~3PM; the driver fled the scene. Both were N/B on S Craycroft Rd near E 25th Street, Tucson. The cyclist was said to have been riding in a bike lane. He was also said to have not been wearing a helmet (no word on whether or not a helmet might have prevented the broken ribs, but I digress).
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)
5/8/2018 1:36pm Buffalo Soldier Trail just south of Garden Ave.
