Cycling, traffic safety, traffic justice, and legal topics; energy, transit and transportion economics
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…”
[update: confirming 2018-06-25 was not listed in FARS. What’s odd is it’s not listed in ASDM either?]
ped fatality in apt complex; victim 3 yo girl. Occurred in the parking lot of apartment complex near University Drive and Rural Road around 2 p.m. June 25, 2018
It’s been widely noted that AZ has a growing and worsening ped traffic fatality “problem”; fortunately this one doesn’t count (yes, this is sarcasm, but nevertheless true)… because it happened in a private lot, it’s non-traffic and as such doesn’t count as a traffic fatality; DUI or otherwise. (similar to e.g. little Daylin Garcia Enos who was killed in a Tucson apt complex parking lot by a backing UPS truck)
6/24/2018 around 4pm Baseline near 7th st, Phoenix.
From the probable cause statement:
The defendant was operating a motor vehicle in the area of 700 E Baseline road where he was traveling eastbound in the westbound lanes of Baseline Road. The def proceeded eastbound through the intersection of 7th street in the westbound curb lane of Baseline Road where he drove up onto the sidewalk along the north side of baseline road and struck the victim WHO WAS WALKING ON THE SIDEWALK…
5/8/2018 1:36pm Buffalo Soldier Trail just south of Garden Ave.
Bicyclist 71-year old David Alva was killed. The driver was arrested.
No particulars were given about the crash; I inferred the bicyclist was struck from behind. The road there is wide multi-laned, divided, arterial in addition to wide bike lanes. Continue reading “Driver arrested in Sierra Vista bicyclist fatality”
12/1/2017 ~ 1:30pm A SB driver 19th Ave near Broadway, Phoenix while speeding and illegally passing vehicles (i.e. driving SB in NB lanes), lost control and drove up on the sidewalk, killing 13 y.o. Cordell Gooch
Police say there were “early indications that the driver showed signs of impairment”
Holy sh!t, another one, I mean another jogger in Ahwatukee killed by a dangerous out-of-control driver… this is a small place. Freak “accident”? Two freak “accidents”?;
11/2/2017 ~ 4AM . Pedestrian / jogger killed on sidewalk near Lakewood Parkway and Amberwood Drive this is a collector road in a residential neighborhood. Police suspect driver was impaired, she was arrested on suspicion of manslaughter. Witnesses reported that the driver of the vehicle, 25-year-old Shannon Scott, was driving on the sidewalk when Hilts was struck”
Continue reading “Another Ahwatukee jogger killed on sidewalk: driver arrested”