WASHINGTON — Arizona had the fifth-highest fatal hit-and-run rate among states in 2016, a year that saw the most hit-and-runs fatalities nationwide, according to a new report from AAA.
The report found that pedestrians and cyclists are the two most likely victims of hit-and-run accidents, accounting for 19.5 percent of all pedestrian fatalities between 2006 and 2016, compared to only 1 percent of vehicle driver deaths coming from hit-and-run crashes.
“Drivers are much more likely to leave the scene of a crash in which pedestrians or a cyclist is killed,” said Michelle Donati-Grayman, media relations lead for AAA Arizona.
That may be because “if there is a crash in which someone in another vehicle is critically injured or killed, that typically is going to mean that the vehicle that driver is in is also going to be damaged to the point where it might not be drivable off the scene,” she said.
Experts say they are seeing the same pattern in Arizona, which they say could simply be the result of more pedestrians and cyclists on roads than in years past.
With “the new health revolution people are getting out and going to walk more,” said Shaun Kildare, the director of research at Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety.
The report said Arizona’s 55 hit-and-run deaths in 2016 worked out to a rate of 0.778 deaths per 100,000 residents. New Mexico was highest with a rate of 0.845, while Nevada was just a hair ahead of Arizona, in fourth place with a rate of 0.780 deaths per 100,000.
Alberto Gutier, the director of the Arizona Governor’s Office of Highway Safety, attributed the high rate to growth in the state .
“In the last six, seven years Arizona has increased by almost 800,000 more drivers, the population is now 7 million,” Gutier said. “When I moved to Arizona 50 years ago, we had 1.2 million people.”
Kildare said mandating safety technology for cars, like automatic emergency breaking and lane-departure warnings, would provide a safety net so drivers are less likely to hit a pedestrian or cyclist.
“We don’t think there’s a cure for guilty drivers leaving the scene,” he said, so the solution lies in preventing the crash. But Gutier said enforcement measures can go a long way, both to educate drivers and prevent them from fleeing.
