Cycling, traffic safety, traffic justice, and legal topics; energy, transit and transportion economics
Red light running, gunplay, road rage, DUI suspected, felony flight. Oh my.
Sunday 2/15/2015 ~ 9:30pm I-17 / Thunderbird Rd, Phoenix
Victim: Constance Swenson
Suspects: Dustin Sommerfield and Christina Moses Continue reading “Woman killed by red light runner”
I had missed this one, but there are/were news reports I found while reconciling the 2014 asdm data, News reports and database say a cyclists was struck and killed while running a red light in Tucson. Continue reading “Tucson Bicyclist Killed, Ran Red Light at Swan Road”
12/19/2014 ~ 11am. Elderly male driver of minivan apparently ran red light southbound Gilbert Road, killing bicyclist (not released) and injuring 2 others; as they passed through the intersection of Gilbert Road and 8th Ave (apparently 8th Ave is Pueblo Ave on the east side) in Mesa, AZ Continue reading “Alleged red-light runner hits 3 bicyclists, 1 dead in Mesa”
The Chandler police force is reeling from the deaths of two officers only three days apart in unrelated traffic collisions…
(on-duty) City of Chandler Police “Officer David Payne, 37, was sitting on his police motorcycle at a red light at about 12:40 a.m. 10/31/2014 Friday when a car rear-ended him at the intersection of Chandler Boulevard and Pennington Drive.” Causing his death. “Police arrested Tempe resident Brian Yazzie, 31, on suspicion of manslaughter and hit-and-run for his role in the collision”. Oh yeah, plus his license was suspended in (and, presumably, since) 2010. — azcentral
Continue reading “Chandler officers killed in separate wrecks”
July 12, 2014 / victim crossing in marked crosswalk w/traffic signal. The 5 y.o. female victim was riding a tricycle; this I would guess should be coded as a pedestrian (though i cross-tagged this article as both a ped and cyclist fatality). This is listed on 2014 cyclist traffic fatalities. [update: is coded as a pedalcyclist in both ASDM and FARS] Continue reading “Girl hit and killed when driver runs red light”
Oh yeah, this one:
A woman accused of driving her SUV about 90 mph before colliding with a car stopped at a red light in east Mesa, killing both occupants, was arrested on Monday. Mesa police booked Ingrid I. Morataya, 35, on suspicion of manslaughter and other charges after she was discharged from a Valley hospital…. The driver and the passenger in the car struck by Morataya’s Toyota FJ Cruiser — Guadalupe Madril, 37, and Jason Aguilera, 33 — died instantly of massive injuries from the violent collision, according to court records… azcentral.com Continue reading “Woman with DUI history arrested in Mesa fatal collision”
Holding post for all 2013 AZ bicyclist fatalities not listed elsewhere on azbikelaw.org
odd not in news(?). Phx 13001797758, acr available. Heavy truck ran red light; in an oddly open-and-shut case (“Seven witnesses reported [truck] ran red light”), ACR shows driver charged w/causing death by moving violation; driver plead guilty M-0741-4735532
| 10/8/2013 | 1726 | Gabriel Robles Tapia, was INVISIBLE | 43/M | Phoenix / Maricopa | Union Hills Dr & 39th Ave | 65/M | (heavy) truck | odd not in news(?). Phx 13001797758, acr available. Heavy truck ran red light; in an oddly open-and-shut case (“Seven witnesses reported [truck] ran red light”), ACR shows driver charged w/causing death by moving violation; driver plead guilty M-0741-4735532 | 2767671 | click | 10/8/2013 17:26:00 | MARICOPA | PHOENIX | 201301797758 | DAYLIGHT | 0 | Union Hills Dr | 39th Ave |
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A Phoenix police officer was injured in a collision with red-light-runner at Sweetwater and 43rd Ave. The red-light-runner was described only as “elderly”. As a result of the collision, both vehicles careened out of control up and over the sidewalks, one striking a tree and another a wall. Although there were three fairly minor injuries, it appears serious injury (or fatality) was only avoided by a stroke of luck that no one was walking there. How often do cars drive up over the sidewalk?
azcentral.com news report:
A car reportedly ran a red light and slammed into a Phoenix police SUV, leaving the officer and two others injured Thursday morning, according to authorities. The police SUV was heading east on Sweetwater Avenue about 9:30 a.m., said Lt. Ben Leuschner of the Phoenix Police Department. The car, with an elderly couple inside, was going south on 43rd Avenue. The car ran a red light and slammed into the police SUV, according to police. The car ended up hitting a wall and the police SUV was pushed off the side of the road. All three people had to be extricated from their vehicles. The officer’s injuries weren’t considered serious. The conditions of the people in the car weren’t immediately available.
I don’t know anything about that area of town, however, I will comment that Sweetwater looks like a nice calm road, whereas 43rd Ave is a standard city of Phoenix car-sewer.
… A few days later on May 19th, Phoenix police officer Daryl Raetz was killed while “processing a DUI suspect near 51st and Cambridge avenues when he was struck by a green Ford Expedition, which then fled the scene”. azcentral.com. The story doesn’t give much detail, i would assume from what was presented he was a pedestrian.
Continue reading “Phx PD Officer’s SUV hit by red-light runner”
Hit and runs are always awful. This one from Tucson May 20, 2011 seems especially so. Police arrested a young woman four days after the crash, Abigail A. Allin, 21. There is a lot more info supplied by Sam Abate’s father over on tucsonvelo.com. Continue reading “[Driver Sentenced] Arrest made in hit-and-run of Tucson cyclist”
[UPDATE: Oct 14, see Investigation, below]
According to item at biketempe.org, and thread at azfixed.com… Bike commuter Jay Fretz was killed in a a collision at the intersection of Alamenda and McClintock Drive in Tempe at approximately 6:30p Monday 5/17/2010. Police say the driver on McClintock ran the red light and hit and killed the bicyclist as he was crossing through the intersection. Continue reading “Commuter cyclist killed in Tempe”
A driver was arrested on suspicion of five counts of manslaughter (see homicide categories) and 3 aggravated assaults. What makes this unusual is the absence of suspicion of DUI. We shall see what the prosecutor does with it. This is a tantalizing comment: “data recorded when the truck’s airbags deployed substantiated detectives’ findings that Myers was driving at ‘an excessive speed,’ “. Data recorder? We (the public) often hear that these sorts of crashes are tragedies but not crimes — because the prosecutor claims that they can’t prove anything. Continue reading “Driver arrested in quintuple(!) fatality — excessive speed and red-light-running alledged”