Tempe Personal Injury Lawyers

Tempe recorded 6,637 crashes in 2024, the most recent year ADOT has published. Twenty-nine were fatal. For a city of nearly 190,000 people wrapped around four freeways and the largest university campus in the country, the toll runs heavy. Across 2016 to 2024, 202 fatal crashes killed 213 people in Tempe, and the two deadliest years on record are the two most recent.

Source: AZ Law Now analysis of NHTSA FARS data, all road users, 2016 to 2024

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The math isn't complicated. Four freeways run through or along the city. I-10, Loop 202, Loop 101, and US-60. Arizona State University's Tempe campus sits in the middle with about 80,000 students. Mill Avenue, Rural Road, Apache Boulevard, and University Drive carry foot traffic, bike traffic, e-bike traffic, and car traffic on the same lanes. The median age in Tempe is 30. Young drivers, high density, mixed modes. The crash numbers follow.

30% of Serious Crashes Involve Pedestrians and Cyclists

Tempe was the first city in Arizona to adopt a Vision Zero plan, back in 2018. They've committed real resources. Photo enforcement cameras. Rotating safety corridors that change quarterly based on crash data. A real-time operations center launched in 2024.

The results. 388 serious injury or fatal crashes between 2021 and 2024. Thirty percent involved pedestrians, bicyclists, e-bikes, or scooters. That's not a freeway problem. That's a surface street problem. People walking and riding on roads designed for cars doing 45 mph.

Darkness is the other constant. Across 2016 to 2024, 51 percent of Tempe's fatal crashes happened in the dark, and 32 percent happened at intersections. Lighting and crossing design are not cosmetic. They decide who survives.

The current safety corridors for 2026 tell you where the problem is right now. 48th Street between Southern and Broadway, McClintock Drive in two segments, and Baseline Road near Priest Drive. These are arterials, not freeways. The crashes happen where speeds are high. Pedestrian infrastructure is thin.

The Loop 202 Milk Tanker Crash

On June 9, 2021, a milk tanker on Loop 202 near the Tempe border crashed into stopped traffic at about 10 p.m. The tanker separated from the truck, crossed the median, and burst into flames. Four people died. Eleven were injured. Eight vehicles involved.

The NTSB investigated. The cause was driver fatigue. The driver regularly worked 70 to 80 hours a week. He was paid per load under an agricultural hours-of-service exemption with no driving time limit. His employer had no fatigue management program.

That crash happened on a road that tens of thousands of Tempe residents use daily. The regulatory loophole that allowed it still exists.

Autonomous Vehicles and Tempe

Tempe is where the autonomous vehicle conversation started. In March 2018, Elaine Herzberg, 49, became the first pedestrian killed by a self-driving car when an Uber test vehicle struck her while she was crossing Mill Avenue near Curry Road at night. In September 2025, a Waymo vehicle was involved in a fatal crash involving a motorcycle. Tempe is ground zero for AV safety policy in Arizona.

Where Tempe Crashes Concentrate

MAG's Top 100 Crash-Risk Intersections list, built on 2018 to 2022 data, includes three Tempe locations. Elliot Road and Kyrene Road at 58th. Broadway Road and Hardy Drive at 62nd. Baseline Road near the I-10/Loop 202 interchange at 68th, with 257 crashes over the study period, the highest raw count of any Tempe intersection on the list.

Those are all-crash rankings. When we narrow to fatal crashes from 2016 to 2024 in our own analysis of federal data, the picture sharpens to the corridors where people are actually dying. The freeways lead, but Broadway Road is the deadliest surface street in the city.

Source: AZ Law Now analysis of NHTSA FARS data, all road users, 2016 to 2024

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The Mill Avenue corridor near ASU is a different kind of danger. Nightlife, pedestrians, cyclists, rideshare pickups, and through traffic all sharing the same space. Late-night impaired driving crashes happen here regularly.

We Handle Tempe Cases

Our offices are in Buckeye and Maricopa. We handle cases across Maricopa County. Tempe's crash patterns are well-documented, and we pull the same ADOT data, MAG intersection reports, and Vision Zero corridor data that builds the case. When a crash involves a public entity like ASU or the city, the deadlines are short: see our reporting on the 180-day notice-of-claim clock.

A Tempe crash doesn't only hurt you. It hurts the people around you too. Call (602) 654-0202 or use our contact form. We don't charge unless we recover money for you.