Cycling, traffic safety, traffic justice, and legal topics; energy, transit and transportion economics
used for automobile crashes where no ACR is filed — e.g. a car crashes from a parking lot into a building; doesn’t get an ACR because occured completely on private property. People can, and do get injured and killed this way; and these are not reflected in official traffic stats
See article azbikelaw.org/non-traffic-traffic
According to SSTI: Federal numbers understate danger to walkers and bikers theses account for about 1 in 8 pedestrian deaths. And is being exacerbated by increasing quantities of large/tall/heavy/straight fronted vehicles.
May 23, 2026 ~ 11pm. Mesa Grand Shopping Center (Baseline and Stapley) parking lot. Fatal hit-run suspect driving grey or silver newer Ford F-150.
Yikes, another “full size” pickup involved fatality. Continue reading “Mesa Police search for Ford F-150 involved in fatal Memorial Day weekend hit-and-run”
3/3/2021, morning. Ug. Driver wipes out a family walking on a sidewalk within a Walmart parking lot.
“the driver could face a reckless driving charge”. Don’t count on it. Authorities have already said impairment is not involved, more than likely this will be seen as the usual “just an accident”. Continue reading “A 4-year-old girl was killed in a crash outside a Glendale Walmart”
June 27, 2019 time unspecified. 4 y.o. boy Royal ( parents: Veronica Sandoval & Eric Chavez) killed by pickup in Mesa; not many details. Possibly backing? no location listed; it sort of implies it was near his home.
Gofundme page, JusticeForRoyal, to help the victim’s parents, Veronica Sandoval & Eric Chavez, with expenses.
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”
No one was hurt only by dumb luck. Seriously, how often does this happen?
There seems to be some disagreement over the exact number of vehicles involved (only 9 or was it 10?) after the driver losing control and crashing into many other vehicles, in some cases obviously totaled. Continue reading “Huge Pileup in Ahwatukee Parking Lot”
[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)
3/12/2018 ~11:30am near Baseline and Priest, Tempe; 52 yo Penny L. Brown was killed by a driver who for unstated reasons lost control in a Circle K parking lot and wiped her out on the sidewalk near a bus stop…
According to police, as officers arrived at the scene, they learned that a male driver had lost control of his vehicle and struck Brown, who was standing near the bus stop on the south side of Baseline. abc15
Continue reading “woman killed at Tempe bus stop by out-of-control driver”
2/22/2018, N Scottsdale Road, near McDowell. Why this took over three weeks to make the news is very weird!? The assailant escaped after jumping into a black 1995 to 1996 black Nissan 200SX, with a 2nd suspect already in the vehicle. Police have so far not located the suspect or vehicle.
This will be a non-traffic statistic (because not a collision with a “motor vehicle in transport”)
2/28/2018 ~3PM
Man dies after being hit by SUV outside Scottsdale Safeway
“The victim has been identified as 81-year-old Michael Ebertin… Police said a 70-year-old woman was behind the wheel of an SUV with another woman when she, for some reason, drove up on the sidewalk to the front of the store and hit the two men.
She stopped just short of the store.”
[ For where and how traffic laws in Arizona apply to bicyclists, see this article ]
The rules of the road (ROR) apply to motorists when an a road; but what about when driving in a parking lot? A private street? etc?
What are usually referred to as the ROR, like stopping, right-of-way, signals, etc, are contained in Arizona Revised Statutes, Title 28, Chapters 3. (Chapter 4 is impaired driving and is treated specifically below). Here is the key statute, along with the key definition, emphasis added in italics: Continue reading “Where do traffic laws apply?”
A driver drove up on the sidewalk and killed a woman and injured her child near 41st St and Jomax, Phoenix.
Police describe the incident as murder, and a ‘random act of violence’. Quite.
Continue reading “Sidewalk driver accused of murder in a ‘random act of violence’”
12/2 ~6:15pm near Thomas Road and 15th Avenue. Nice.
The car drove up the sidewalk and over the curb before colliding with a tree, plowing through a pillar holding up the restaurant’s patio roof and continuing on into the main dining area of the restaurant where eight people sat.
The man was later cited for driving while impaired, police said. His name was not released.
Why not?
Continue reading “Police suspect DUI: Owner recounts car barreling into his Phoenix restaurant”
According to a TPD press release, e-bicyclist 49-year-old Joseph Brzuchalski died after wobbling, falling, and hitting his head. The incident occurred 9/21/2015 ~ 1730, and police believe alcohol was invovled. The press release goes to great lengths to say this incident did not involve train tracks.
In any event, I’m labeling this as non-traffic because
In other words, I’m not expecting this to show up on state or federal traffic crash stats.
[ Update Sept 3: they seem to be implying this was not a vehicle involved, there was no hit-and-run, thus this was not a traffic crash, so I added the non-traffic tag, and am removing the hit-and-run tag. There is some sort of fairly deep ditch/canal(?) running in the median]
Sept 2, 2015. Police were notified of a dead body and nearby mangled bicycle in the median of Apache Trail near Ocotillo 8:30am. Though this is apparent hit-and-run traffic fatality, it’s not clear and the investigation will have to confirm.
Apache Trail near Ocotillo road has three lanes in each direction plus a BL. East and West are separated by a VERY wide median (I see ~ 65′ on google maps). Continue reading “Apparent hit and run bicyclist fatality in AJ”
7/24/2015 Far northwest Valley. Maricopa Co Sheriff investigated. I had missed this news item at the time:
Fox10: Bicyclist seriously injured after hitting back of truck Continue reading “Bicyclist dies after rear-ending parked trailer”