Cycling, traffic safety, traffic justice, and legal topics; energy, transit and transportion economics
Ann Day is a prominent member of a prominent Pima county family; a former County Supervisor, and was the sister of retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’connor.
Something is rotten in Pima County. It seems to me cases with very similar fact-sets (extreme speed and recklessness, DUI, causing headon) routinely go for manslaughter elsewhere. Continue reading “Driver who killed Ann Day gets less than 5 years”
Early morning head-on freeway crash SR51 near Indian School. The driver known only as a 27 y.o. man from Ohio was driving a (new?) Corvette the wrong way. Police think the driver may have been impaired. Really? You don’t say. The name hasn’t been released but expect aggravated assault charges when he’s released from hospital.
Two Tempe officers hurt in wrong-way crash on SR-51 in Phoenix
The Arizona Republic has been running a series of throwback stories from the files of report Don Bolles who was murdered in 1976, presumably related to mob investigations he was conducting.
This one, unrelated to mob, popped up this week Don Bolles files: The drunken crash that led to tougher Arizona DUI law
The quick synopsis was in the early morning hours of Easter Sunday 1971 a very drunk driver at .251 BAC killed 3 people and left a 4th person in a permanent vegetative state. He was portrayed as being not particularly remorseful. He ultimately served 6 months of a 1 year sentence for a guilty plea to misdemeanor manslaughter. Continue reading “The drunken crash that led to tougher Arizona DUI law”
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”
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”
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”
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”
4/23/2019 ~ 11pm victim Thomas Taraba and another person were walking on the sidewalk along McDowell Road near 37th Street. Police say river 20-year-old Zachary Showers was the driver; he was arrested on suspicion of DUI
“According to court documents, Taraba was thrown 75 feet” indicating the driver’s speed was very fast, perhaps too fast for any city street. 12news.com. a few more details at fox10news.
Continue reading “Vision Zero PHX, was: PD: Driver kills man on sidewalk”
Police think the driver may have been impaired in this 3/12/2019 morning incident. Also, for some reason they are protecting the identity of the suspect. Maybe will be non-traffic? (for now it’s tagged). Continue reading “Driver Plows into home; may have been impaired”
He came to the attention of police when “a state trooper spotted him driving with his right-side wheels on the shoulder of the road“.
People, this is the drifting behavior so often exhibited by drunk or distracted drivers that so often kills or injures bicyclists during so-called “motorist overtaking” errors.
12/6/2018 ~ 6:30pm. 52nd St & Broadway, Tempe.The driver Jaquin Gurulee, 29, was arrested at the scene on suspicion of manslaughter and DUI.Historical footnote, a bicyclist was killed at this intersection 2/2/20116. In the 2016 incident, police say the bicyclist traveling along Broadway Rd and disregarded a signal.
Continue reading “Police ID bicyclist hit, killed by vehicle in Tempe; DUI suspected”
DUI drivers remain a serious threat to every road user, whether you walk, or jog, or ride a bike or ride a motorcycle, or drive a car. SSTI recently published a good review of related research on the occasion of Utah being the first US state to lower per se limit to 0.05 BAC.
The latest gem is a driver who initially came to the attention of police when they “began receiving calls reporting a reckless driver in a Nissan Rogue traveling on the sidewalk and nearly striking several vehicles along Milton Road in Flagstaff.” Police stopped the vehicle but the driver fled, ending up going wrong way on I-40. This is on a Saturday (11/17/2018) afternoon around 3:30pm. Continue reading “Wrong-way driver arrested: DUI susp”
10/11/2018 Thursday “morning”; victim 71 y.o. bicyclist Rick Ellwanger
Driver arrested suspected impairment. Wrong-way; hit-and-run; additional pedestrian victims.
On Friday afternoon police identified the suspect as 20-year-old Yanibra Moreno saying she’s being held on susp of 2nd degree murder and leaving the scene.
Continue reading “Wrong-way driver kills bicyclist on A-mountain”
9/23/2018 9:30am pedestrian 48 y.o. male Dana Machado was killed when a driver drove onto the sidewalk where the victim was walking his dog. Police arrested driver Richard Cruz on susp of DUI and are awaiting tox results.
Continue reading “Driver jumps curb, kills Mesa man on sidewalk”
There are tens of thousands of DUI arrests every year in Arizona; we rarely hear about any of these unless the person has some sort of celebrity, or unless they kill some people; examples of either case aren’t hard to find. Impaired drivers continue to account for a significant fraction of traffic fatalities (24% in 2016) amounting to hundreds of deaths in Arizona alone; victims are the drivers themselves, other drivers, passengers, bicyclists, and pedestrians. Continue reading “DUI and the beat goes on…”