I-17's Deadliest Truck Miles Run Past Anthem and Black Canyon City

The Finding

Interstate 17 runs 146 miles from Phoenix to Flagstaff. On 29 of them, from Carefree Highway in north Phoenix past Anthem and Black Canyon City, fatal truck crashes pile up faster than anywhere else on the route. The stretch ends at the Sunset Point rest area, about 10 miles north of Black Canyon City.

I counted every fatal crash involving a large truck on the I-17 mainline from 2015 to 2024. There were 40, and they killed 45 people. The Anthem and Black Canyon City stretch, a fifth of the road, carried 13 of those crashes and 16 of the deaths.

The stretch climbs out of the north Valley past Anthem, through New River and Black Canyon City, and up the long grade beyond it. It’s the gateway to the mountain miles, and for a decade it was the deadliest part of the trip for crashes involving a big rig.

How I Counted

The crash records come from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Fatality Analysis Reporting System, the federal census of every fatal crash on a US public road.

I pulled Arizona fatal crashes from 2015 to 2024 that involved a large truck, meaning a vehicle FARS codes as a medium or heavy truck. Then I kept the crashes recorded on the I-17 mainline. Nine more happened on I-17 ramps, frontage roads, or cross streets, and I left those out.

The milepost field in the federal file is coded inconsistently from year to year. So I placed each crash on the highway by its recorded latitude and longitude, using the Arizona Department of Transportation’s own milepost markers.

To compare stretches fairly, I divided deaths by truck miles traveled. Truck traffic comes from ADOT’s 2024 federal highway inventory, applied across all ten years. Truck volumes shift over a decade, so treat each rate as an estimate and the comparison between stretches as the point.

The record covers fatal crashes only. Every count here is a fatal-truck-crash count, and it says nothing about fault.

Four Stretches, One Outlier

I split I-17 into four stretches at familiar landmarks. Measured against truck traffic, one stands well apart.

The Phoenix metro section, from the I-10 interchange to Carefree Highway, carries the most trucks of any stretch. It recorded 8 deaths, or about 0.55 per 100 million truck miles.

Farther north, the rates sit near 1.4. The miles from the Sunset Point rest area to Camp Verde recorded 10 deaths, and Camp Verde to Flagstaff recorded 11.

The 29 miles past Anthem and Black Canyon City recorded 16. That works out to about 2.25 per 100 million truck miles, roughly four times the metro rate and about 1.6 times the mountain miles beyond it.

Source: NHTSA FARS 2015-2024. ADOT HPMS 2024 truck AADT. Rates are estimates. Computed by AZ Law Now.

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Trucks make up about 13% of the traffic on this stretch. They were involved in 13 of its 47 fatal crashes of any kind, or 28%. In the Phoenix metro section, trucks were about 8% of traffic and 10% of fatal crashes.

Where the Road Narrowed

Seven of the 13 fatal truck crashes on this stretch were rear-end collisions. Three of them happened at the same spot, milepost 228.7, just south of the Anthem Way exit.

That’s where I-17 dropped from three lanes in each direction to two. ADOT’s 2024 lane inventory still shows the change at milepost 229.

All three crashes happened in daylight, in 2017, 2022, and 2023. Together they killed four people.

Source: NHTSA FARS 2015-2024, located by coordinates on ADOT mileposts. Computed by AZ Law Now.

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The data doesn’t say why those crashes happened. It does show that the deadliest point on the stretch sat where three lanes of traffic had to fit into two.

The Grades Beyond

North of that stretch, the record looks different. The run to Camp Verde ends with the long drop into the Verde Valley, and police recorded 5 of the 11 large trucks in fatal crashes there as traveling downhill.

Along the whole route, police recorded 15 of the 43 large trucks in these crashes on a slope, 9 downhill and 6 uphill. The rest were recorded on level road.

Those mountain miles carry the highest share of trucks on I-17, about 15% of traffic. Their death rates still ran lower than the stretch past Anthem and Black Canyon City.

Most of the Dead Weren’t in the Truck

Of the 45 people killed, 37 were outside the truck. They were drivers and passengers in other vehicles, and six were pedestrians. Eight were riding in a large truck.

These crashes also left survivors. Another 58 people were hurt, 17 of them recorded with suspected serious injuries.

The record leans later, too. From 2015 to 2019, I-17 recorded 17 fatal truck crashes and 19 deaths. From 2020 to 2024 it recorded 23 crashes and 26 deaths, and the Anthem and Black Canyon City stretch went from 4 deaths to 12.

What Changed in 2025

ADOT spent three years rebuilding the 23 miles from Anthem Way through Black Canyon City to the Sunset Point rest area. Construction began in September 2022 and wrapped up in December 2025.

A third lane opened in each direction between Anthem Way and Black Canyon City in May 2025. Two flex lanes, which carry one direction of traffic at a time, opened on the climb north of Black Canyon City later that year.

Every crash in this analysis happened before those lanes opened. Federal fatal-crash data for 2025 isn’t published yet, so nobody can say from these records whether the new lanes are working.

Two of the 2023 crashes on this stretch were recorded inside a construction work zone. That fits a corridor that spent three years under construction.

What This Means

A truck crash on the climb north of Phoenix is rarely a single-vehicle event. Most of the people who die are in the cars around the truck.

The records that explain a crash like that sit in several places. The police report, the truck’s federal inspection history, and the carrier’s safety file each hold part of the story.

Inspection records show trucks on this road do get pulled over for problems. From October 2023 to September 2026, 119 of 541 roadside vehicle inspections logged on I-17 or in its highway towns, about 1 in 5, ended with the vehicle ordered out of service. Statewide the rate was about 1 in 4.

If a commercial truck hit you or someone you love on I-17, talk to our truck crash lawyers before you talk to the trucking company’s insurer. The first conversation is free.

For a decade, the deadliest truck miles on I-17 weren’t the mountain grades most drivers fear. They were the 29 miles past Anthem and Black Canyon City.

Related Coverage

For the legal and process context, see Ron DeBrigida’s guide to Arizona truck crash law and Stephanie Ramirez’s truck crash action plan.

For the statewide picture, see our investigation of the Arizona truck death surge. And for Arizona’s busiest freight corridor, see who registers the trucks in fatal I-10 truck crashes.