11/1/2021 ~ 11:30pm. Two of the four people in a car being driven the wrong way by a 17 y.o. male died when that vehicle collided with another. The driver of that other vehicle sustained serious injuries. The driver has not been charged, investigation is ongoing; and police haven’t hinted at why the driver made this fatal error. Most wrong-way drivers are impaired.
Price road here is a “frontage” road which parallels the Price Freeway / Loop 202. It’s configured as a separated one-way running along both sides of the freeway (i.e. on the west side, it’s only southbound; and on the east it’s only northbound). They didn’t say specifically where along Price the incident occurred but here is a sample intersection (e.g. at Southern); another possibility for going the wrong way would be for a driver to turn left from a side-street (only rights are permitted. I’m a little surprised there aren’t diverters on the side-street to make it more difficult to turn left).
McClintock High School senior identified as victim in Tempe wrong-way crash
Aldous Harris, a 17-year-old McClintock High School senior, was one of two victims who died during a wrong-way collision on Monday on Price Road in Tempe, police officials said Wednesday… According to police, a single driver who was headed south on Price Road was struck by a wrong-way driver headed north in the southbound lanes…A 23-year-old woman was driving the right way when she was struck by a northbound vehicle, according to Tempe Police Department spokesperson Natalie Barela. She remains in the hospital with serious injuries, according to police.
The wrong-way driver was a 17-year-old boy whom The Arizona Republic is not yet naming because he is a minor and has not been charged with a crime as of Wednesday afternoon. He sustained injuries that were not life-threatening and his case is being submitted for review by the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office, Barela said…
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A 31 year old man has become the first traffic fatality on the new section of freeway that opened in late December, just a couple of weeks ago. DPS reports that 31-year-old Josafath Rubio-Hernandez died while driving the wrong way on the freeway near Elliot Road and collided head-on with a semi-truck.
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.
