A driver driving the wrong way on the freeway killed all four occupants of the other vehicle. Police have not revealed why they think driver was driving the wrong way, however, they did note that this year
“…DPS arrested 52 people suspected of driving the wrong way… Ultimately, each of the 52 drivers arrested was found to be impaired”.
fatal incident 8/27/2016; This was reported in the media at the time but I had missed it.
Cyclist Thomas J. Butler 39/M; 43rd Ave, just north of Bethany Home Road. It’s not clear when police say things like “The bicyclist tried to ride across the street, not in a crosswalk”; and there are inconsistencies in the data file; unfortunately the crash report itself is unavailable from the given file number, so the world will never know: Continue reading Phoenix police: Bicyclist identified after being hit by suspected drunk driver→
These are the kinds of upgraded gigantic signs that WW drivers must pass to enter freeways.
This past Wednesday (6/28/2017) afternoon, another wrong way fatal crash and another driver is locked up. “Fixing” wrong way driving can most obviously be effected by removing impaired drivers from the road. Proposed, costly, technological gadgets to detect wrong-way can have only limited usefulness. Abc15.com reports that the wrong-way driver “… admitted to drinking before driving and blood tests came back with a blood alcohol level of .160”
Some recent news items. Also, be sure to check out the “cold medicine” guy from a few days ago…
These are the kinds of upgraded gigantic signs that WW drivers must pass to enter freeways.
6/6/2017 double-fatality ~8PM, began driving around airport, including through parking structures the wrong way and breaking through the arm/gate: Wrong way driver 56-year-old Ronald Wayne Mollenhauer killed another driver, Young Lee on a transition ramp between I-10 and SR51. A third driver was injured. Given the ww driver is dead, you probably won’t hear much about this again. Was he impaired by drugs or alcohol, or some other impairment? Most ww drivers are. We’ll have to wait for FARS to find out which will report any chemical testing results. Continue reading More Wrong-way freeway driving; can detection help?→
Cold medicine? maybe, just maybe plain-old drunk. We’ll see. Interesting comment about victim’s rights, and appearing in court
A total of 13 people requested victim’s rights due to the driver using his vehicle as a deadly instrument… During Walker’s initial appearance, one of the alleged victims addressed the judge.
“We were inches from actually crashing into him, and that in itself is an emotional trauma,” the man said. “He’s not safe and he shouldn’t be out in society placing others in danger.”
It’s good to see ordinary people stick up for their rights and hopefully hold dangerous drivers responsible for their actions.
5/5/2017 bicyclist Robert Dale Fox II was killed by driver Melanie Laverne Jones, and arrested on suspicion of 2nd degree murder
suspected and DUI.
The rear end collision occurred on SR95 between Home Depot and the USPS. (~ MP 249)
The outside lane appears to be quite ( ~ 14 feet plus a 2 foot gutter pan) wide, and the bicyclist was thrown into the curb. The motorist was likely swerved toward the curb. The body of that car is ~ 6 feet wide.
Criminal Case
According to a June 8, 2017 Mohave Valley Daily News article, Melanie Luverne Jones is being held in county jail on DUI higher than .20 plus manslaughter charges and has left the public defender in favor of hiring her own lawyer
4/15/2017 ~ 2am. A male wrong-way driver collided headon on the I-17 freeway near Greenway in Phoenix with a vehicle carrying two sisters. All are dead.
[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 gets convicted (it’s apparently a plea deal, Pima Co records are crappy, but I see no mention of a trial) of negligent homicide; 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→
Arizona metes out harsh penalties for drunken driving, with mandatory jail time and heavy fines, and Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery said Arizona has steep penalties for good reason
This is the kind of driving that kills bicyclists…
