Tag: statistics

Arizona Crash Facts 2025

Arizona persons killed in traffic crashes 2010-2025. Data source: ADOT

ADOT no longer releases a Crash Facts document, it’s been replaced by an annual “dashboard”. More on that later. In any event, the calendar year data becomes around the middle of the following year, so data for 2025 is now final.

Much has been said about the horrendous rise in moto-vehicle traffic dangerousness around the pandemic, it appears that it is continuing to revert, but has not yet reached, pre-pandemic levels which were definitely not great, see e.g. As global road deaths are falling, the U.S. is being left behind

Continue reading “Arizona Crash Facts 2025”

e-bike rider in Phoenix dies after striking rear of parked semi

I’m mentioning this incident specifically for a couple of reasons… read on.

2026-09-07 around 3:30pm. Police say a man riding an “e-bike” died  when he struck the rear of a parked semi near 19th Avenue and Mountain View Road.

The use of the term “e-bike” is often used very loosely. We need to know whether this is a class 1, 2, or 3 electric bicycle. If it is not any of those, it is a motorcycle. Continue reading “e-bike rider in Phoenix dies after striking rear of parked semi”

More about more about ebike crash reporting

I was invited to attend a meeting 2/23/2026 pulled together by Kerry Wilcoxson (ADOT State Safety Engineer) where he invited folks from Arizona DHS (Dept of Health Services) as well as some other interested parties.

The topic being e-bikes and crash reporting. Which is of course getting all sorts of (mostly negative) attention, for understandable reasons. But the truth is we have very little data to go on… Continue reading “More about more about ebike crash reporting”

More about e-bike crash reporting; and What’s going on in Maricopa?

(referring to the City of Maricopa. Which confusingly is split across Maricopa an Pinal Counties).

2026-02-03 ~ 8am Juvenile avoids serious injury after being struck on busy Porter Road:

Maricopa police responded to a vehicle-versus-pedestrian collision involving a juvenile riding an electric bike on Porter Road on Tuesday morning. The incident occurred at approximately 8 a.m. near the intersection of Porter Road and Alan Steven Parkway, according to the Maricopa Police Department. This intersection is near both Sequoia Pathway and Leading Edge Charter schools…
Police said the child was riding the electric bike against the flow of traffic when they attempted to cross the roadway and were struck by a vehicle making a right turn at low speed.
The juvenile sustained minor bumps and scrapes. A parent declined medical transport at the scene, police said…
No citations were issued in this morning’s incident.

This is a reminder to check crash records, and wonder if it was actually an electric bicycle as defined (e.g. a class 1, 2, 3) or rather a motorcycle with an electric motor (like the popular Surron, Talaria, etc), that are effectively illegal. There’s a lot of sloppy language floating around. It’s not completely clear if police will file a crash report as it may be below the reporting threshold, so we’ll just have to wait and see. Continue reading “More about e-bike crash reporting; and What’s going on in Maricopa?”

Proposed legislation would regulate bicycle speed

The spring 2026 legislative season (57th, 2nd Regular)  is apparently up-and-running already! Senator John Kavanaugh (R-Scottsdale) has proposed legislation that would limit a bicyclist’s speed in certain places.

SB1008 bicycles; mobility devices; speed limits

There was a veritable media blitz; here are a few: Continue reading “Proposed legislation would regulate bicycle speed”

What happens when a Waymo is at fault in a crash?

On May 1, 2025, AZfamily’s investigative reporter Derek Staal did a piece about Waymo; it of course piqued my interest… What happens when a Waymo is at fault in a crash? , here’s an excerpt

Federal crash data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) shows Waymo vehicles were involved in at least 202 crashes in Arizona between 2021 and 2024, ranging from minor scrapes and door dings to 31 crashes that resulted in injuries. But the records are heavily redacted and do not indicate who was at fault.

Arizona’s Family Investigates spent six months collecting and reviewing police reports on Waymo crashes in Phoenix, Scottsdale, Chandler, Mesa and Tempe. Of the 71 police-documented crashes involving Waymos, officers determined the self-driving car was not at fault 87% of the time. In 13% of cases, however, police blamed the Waymo vehicle.

Continue reading “What happens when a Waymo is at fault in a crash?”

Carnage On World’s Roads Drops Slightly, But U.S. Is An Outlier

Spoiler alert: not an outlier in a good way.

This is an Forbes interview about an updated periodic international/global report on traffic safety, it appears to be based on up thru 2022 data Continue reading “Carnage On World’s Roads Drops Slightly, But U.S. Is An Outlier”

More about missing Hit and Runs

I find any hit-and-run abhorrent. A hit-and-run driver involved in any traffic crash with any injury is a criminal felon; and if the injury is serious or results in death, it’s a serious felony (class 3 or 2). It’s worth pointing out that hit-and-run is a crime for the driver regardless of who caused the crash (i.e. which party had the right of way is irrelevant, except for sentencing).

The background is I noticed here and there over the years what seemed to me to be an odd listing in the traffic database of a fatal bicyclist, and an unknown vehicle with unknown everything else (direction, lane, lighting, etc etc) except for bicyclist demographic and it usually had a location, but was NOT listed as a hit-and-run. I inquired about a few of them and the story was always something like the coroner(I think?) submitted something somehow to traffic records. I brushed it off as something that happens very rarely; some sort of freak occurrence. However. It turns out there are dozens of such cases every year., unsurprisingly most of them are pedestrian. Continue reading “More about missing Hit and Runs”

Tucson ranked third most dangerous metro in entire US?!

SmartGrowthAmerica’s Dangerous by Design report has the Tucson area at the third most-dangerous metro by ped deaths in the United States for the period 2018-2022 (at 4.16 ped deaths per 100,000 population).

According to the chart, the Tuscon area catapulted from a much better (the light pink part of the bar) figure in the, prior period, 2013-2017 when it was  would have been much lower down on the list.

Continue reading “Tucson ranked third most dangerous metro in entire US?!”

Bicyclist killed in collision at College/Alameda 4-way stop

Feb 14, 2023 5:38AM College and Alameda, Tempe AZ.

A 55 y.o. male bicyclist was killed at this all way (AWSC, All Way Stop Controlled) intersection.

According to the police report, based on the driver and two independent witness statements, the northbound bicyclist failed to stop and rode into the side of a westbound driver of a F-150 pickup. Continue reading “Bicyclist killed in collision at College/Alameda 4-way stop”

Arizona Crash Facts 2022

No new thumbnail for 2022!

ADOT released Crash Facts 2022  July 24, 2023, which is back to the normal schedule (last year’s was released in late Sept for unstated reasons).

2022 was, again, a very bloody year on Arizona’s roads and highways. Overall deaths increased over the already bad 2020, and 2021 figures. Continue reading “Arizona Crash Facts 2022”

FARS 2021: Arizona among top 10 states for drunken driving deaths

yes, a drunk driver slammed into a Police car severely injuring Phx police officer Chase McCance in 2021

The NHTSA released traffic fatality figures, FARS, for calendar year 2021 a few weeks ago; to little fanfare and quite late as noted by Smart Growth America. Here’s an overview.

Arizona, once again, scores in several “top 10 lists” that nobody wants to be on, notably landing 8th on the list of top states for DUI-involved fatalities, despite being only the 14th most populous states.  Arizona among top 10 states for drunken driving deaths. (That azcentral story, by the way, had an interesting DUI case inserted with bodycam footage of the Cochise County Attorney being arrested for extreme DUI back in February). Continue reading “FARS 2021: Arizona among top 10 states for drunken driving deaths”

Arizona Crash Facts 2021

ADOT released Crash Facts 2021  in late September 2022 (a bit later than usual? and oddly, the database was missing a lot as recently as end of June; what is causing these huge delays? are police sitting on reports?

2021 was a very bloody year on Arizona’s roads and highways. 2020 had unusual traffic patterns due to pandemic [1], but comparing 2019 to 2021  deaths were up sharply for all person types (driver, passenger, bicyclists, pedestrian), about 20% overall. Continue reading “Arizona Crash Facts 2021”

2022 Preliminary Arizona Traffic Crash Stats

[UPDATE: yes, this is wrong wrong wrong. 2022 was in fact a terrible, bad, worse year; see Arizona Crash Facts 2022 ]

This is a warning about preliminary data and drawing stats from it… there was a news article “Arizona traffic fatalities are down in 2022, data shows” that was suggesting that 2022 might be on-track for significantly fewer traffic fatalities:

After a deadlier than usual year for traffic deaths in 2021, fatalities in 2022 showed a sharp decrease, according to preliminary data from the Arizona Governor’s Office of Highway Safety.
According to the preliminary data from the office, traffic fatalities between January and June fell from 626 deaths in 2021 to 350 deaths in 2022 — a 44% decrease.

Sadly, this is unlikely to be true. Continue reading “2022 Preliminary Arizona Traffic Crash Stats”