Phoenix and Prescott car accident guide and data hub

If you were just in a wreck on a Valley freeway or a two-lane highway outside Prescott, you probably have two questions. How bad is the risk where you drive, and what does Arizona law actually let you do next? This page puts the local crash numbers and the state rules in one place for the Phoenix and Prescott market, which runs from the packed arterials of Maricopa County up through the rural highways of Yavapai County.

The short version from the state's own data is that 2024 was a little safer than 2023, and Arizona roads still killed more than three people a day.

The numbers across the market

Drivers across Arizona reported 121,107 crashes in 2024, down from 123,256 the year before.¹ Those crashes killed 1,228 people, a 6.12 percent drop from 2023 and the second straight yearly decline.¹ That still works out to more than three deaths every day, or roughly one reported crash somewhere in the state every four minutes.

Most of it happens where most of the people are. Maricopa County, which covers Phoenix, Mesa, Glendale, Scottsdale, and the rest of the Valley, logged roughly 88,000 crashes in 2024. That is about seven of every ten crashes in the state and close to half of all Arizona traffic deaths.²

The state data also shows where people die. Of the 1,228 killed, 775 died on local streets and 453 on state highways, and 781 of the deaths were in urban areas against 447 in rural ones.² Alcohol was a factor in 347 deaths, roughly 28 percent of fatal crashes. Speed was tied to 417 deaths and more than 20,000 injuries. At least 8,289 drivers in 2024 collisions were doing something distracting behind the wheel, and motorcyclists made up 219 of the year's deaths.²

Where crashes cluster in the Valley

The sharpest local read on the metro comes from the Maricopa Association of Governments (MAG), the regional planning agency that ranks the area's 100 riskiest intersections from five years of ADOT crash data. MAG does not rank by raw crash counts. Its Intersection Safety Score weights crash severity at 50 percent and frequency and crash type at 25 percent each, so a corner with fewer but deadlier wrecks can outrank a busier one.³

In the 2018 through 2022 ranking, the worst intersection in the region is 99th Avenue and Lower Buckeye Road in Phoenix, scoring 0.953 out of a possible 1 on more than 400 crashes.⁴ The data flags a whole-corridor problem on 35th Avenue, which by itself holds 13 of the region's 100 riskiest intersections.⁴ Out in the West Valley, 51st Avenue and Camelback Road in Glendale tops the local list, and in the East Valley, Rural Road and University Drive in Tempe sits among the 20 worst.⁴ MAG counts corners across Maricopa County and into neighboring Pinal, so the list reflects the whole commuter belt, not just the city core.

Freeway design is part of the story too. ADOT recently finished rebuilding the I-10 Broadway Curve, the 11-mile stretch between Loop 202 and I-17 near Sky Harbor that carries more than 300,000 vehicles on an average weekday. The $850 million job, the largest freeway reconstruction in the agency's history, wrapped up on May 31, 2025.⁵

The Prescott side of the market

Drive north and the pattern shifts. Yavapai County reported 5,426 crashes in 2024, the fourth-highest total of any Arizona county, and it recorded 130 motorcycle crashes and 19 rider deaths, also fourth in the state.⁶ The county's population is a fraction of Maricopa's, which makes a fourth-place crash total a sign of how much traffic funnels onto a handful of highways. The two roads that carry most of the traffic between Prescott and the Valley are State Route 69, which drops down to Cordes Junction and Interstate 17, and State Route 89, which runs through Chino Valley and Paulden. Both saw fatal crashes in 2024.

That tracks with the statewide split. More than a third of Arizona's road deaths happened outside urban areas,² and rural two-lane highways with higher speeds and no center median tend to turn a crash into a fatal one. If you drive SR 69 or SR 89 often, that is the risk the numbers are describing.

What Arizona law gives you after a crash

Arizona runs on a firm clock. Under ARS 12-542, you generally have two years from the date of the crash to file a personal injury lawsuit, and a claim filed after that is barred.⁷ There is a shorter deadline that catches people off guard when a government vehicle or a public entity is involved. ARS 12-821.01 requires a written notice of claim within 180 days, and missing it bars the case entirely.⁸

Fault here works on pure comparative negligence. Under ARS 12-2505, your recovery is reduced in proportion to your own share of fault, but you are not shut out even if you were mostly to blame. A driver found 70 percent at fault can still recover 30 percent of their damages.⁹ The one carve-out is that someone who intentionally or wantonly caused the harm recovers nothing.⁹

On coverage, Arizona requires every driver to carry at least 25/50/15 in liability insurance, meaning $25,000 for injury to one person, $50,000 per crash, and $15,000 for property damage, under ARS 28-4009. Those minimums took effect on July 1, 2020.¹⁰ The Arizona Department of Insurance and Financial Institutions regulates those policies and takes consumer complaints.¹¹ The minimums are thin. A single Valley emergency-room visit can run past $25,000, which is why uninsured and underinsured-motorist coverage carries real weight in this market.

Getting your crash report

If Phoenix police or another Valley city or county department worked your crash, request the report through that agency's public-records unit. For crashes the Department of Public Safety handled on the freeways, or any crash where no officer wrote a report, DPS lets you file a Citizen's Report of a Collision yourself.¹² Reports usually take a few business days to post, and you will need the date, location, and a report or driver number to pull yours. Get the report in hand before you start trading numbers with an insurer, because it fixes the basic facts of what happened.

When you are ready to talk to a lawyer, you can compare options in the thatcarhitme.com legal directory.

This page is general information, not legal advice.

Sources

1. Arizona Department of Transportation, "Traffic fatalities in Arizona dip for second year in a row." https://azdot.gov/news/traffic-fatalities-arizona-dip-second-year-row

2. Arizona Department of Transportation, 2024 Motor Vehicle Crash Facts for the State of Arizona. https://azdot.gov/sites/default/files/2025-07/2024-Crash-Facts.pdf

3. Maricopa Association of Governments, Network Screening Methodology for Intersections. https://azmag.gov/Portals/0/Documents/TSC_2010-07-20_MAG-Network-Screening-Methodology-for-Intersections-May-2010_.pdf

4. Maricopa Association of Governments, Top 100 Intersections Ranked by Crash Risk (2018-2022 crash data). https://azmag.gov/Portals/0/Documents/List-Top-100-Intersections-Ranked-by-Crash-Risk-MAG-2018-2022.pdf

5. Arizona Department of Transportation, "The I-10 Broadway Curve Improvement Project is Complete." https://azdot.gov/news/i-10-broadway-curve-improvement-project-complete

6. The Daily Courier (Prescott), "ADOT: Arizona traffic fatalities decreased in 2024, see where Yavapai County ranks." https://www.dcourier.com/news/adot-arizona-traffic-fatalities-decreased-in-2024-see-where-yavapai-county-ranks/article_ba389c66-6912-557e-b71f-7aeadeaf1330.html

7. Arizona Revised Statutes section 12-542. https://www.azleg.gov/ars/12/00542.htm

8. Arizona Revised Statutes section 12-821.01. https://www.azleg.gov/ars/12/00821-01.htm

9. Arizona Revised Statutes section 12-2505. https://www.azleg.gov/ars/12/02505.htm

10. Arizona Revised Statutes section 28-4009. https://www.azleg.gov/ars/28/04009.htm

11. Arizona Department of Insurance and Financial Institutions, Automobile Insurance consumer information. https://difi.az.gov/consumer/automobile-insurance

12. Arizona Department of Public Safety, Citizen's Collision Report. https://www.azdps.gov/azdps-citizens-collision-report