A woman remains in critical condition after a driver struck her near the Phoenix-Tempe border Thursday night and sped off without stopping, leaving investigators with no suspect description as of Friday. Tempe police say the crash happened near Baseline Road and Calle Los Cerros Drive, an intersection sandwiched between Interstate 10 and 48th Street.
According to AZ Family, authorities were called to the scene on Thursday night, where first responders found the woman suffering from life-threatening injuries. She was taken to a hospital in critical condition, and as of Friday morning, police had not identified or located the driver who hit her. No description of the vehicle or the person behind the wheel has been released.
Investigators believe the woman was crossing the street against a green light when the car struck her, per the same report. The driver did not stop.
What Arizona Law Says About Crossing Against a Signal
Arizona traffic law generally requires pedestrians crossing outside marked crosswalks or against signals to yield the right-of-way to vehicles, while also requiring drivers to exercise due care to avoid hitting anyone in the roadway, under Arizona Revised Statutes cited by Craig Swapp & Associates. But that legal framework does not erase the driver's obligation to stop. Under Arizona Revised Statutes § 28-661, a driver who flees the scene of a crash causing serious physical injury commits a Class 3 felony punishable by up to seven years in prison, a penalty that rises to a Class 2 felony carrying up to a decade behind bars if the driver caused the collision, according to Shouselaw.com.
Even if the woman is later found to bear some responsibility for crossing against the signal, Arizona's pure comparative fault system does not automatically block her from pursuing civil damages against the driver who left her in the road, according to AZ Law Now. Under that framework, fault can be divided between multiple parties without fully barring recovery for either side.
A Corridor Already Flagged for Danger
The stretch of Baseline Road where the crash occurred sits on a corridor that federal and city officials have already identified as high-risk. In September 2024, Tempe received a $12.5 million federal Safe Streets and Roads for All grant to fund signalized pedestrian crossings, bike lanes, and high-visibility crosswalk striping along a 3.9-mile stretch of Baseline Road that logged 35 fatal or serious-injury crashes between 2017 and 2021, according to KTAR News. The city followed up in May 2025 by activating automated photo-enforcement speed and red-light cameras at several high-crash intersections along the corridor, including Baseline Road and Rural Road and Baseline Road and Mill Avenue, issuing $250 civil fines for violations, per FOX 10 Phoenix.
The intersection at Baseline Road and Calle Los Cerros Drive itself straddles the Phoenix-Tempe border just west of Interstate 10, carrying heavy arterial vehicle traffic alongside Valley Metro bus stops serving routes 48 and 77, according to transit data compiled by Valley Metro.
Part of a Statewide Surge in Hit-and-Runs
Thursday's crash adds to what state data shows is a worsening pattern. Arizona recorded 16,136 hit-and-run crashes, 4,202 injuries, and 86 hit-and-run fatalities in 2024, an increase of 488 collisions over the prior year, according to an AAA study reported by KTAR News. Nationally, federal crash data from 2020 through 2024 ranked Arizona fourth in the country for hit-and-run pedestrian fatality rates, averaging 64.2 such deaths per year, as reported by The Gila Herald.
Nighttime conditions compound the danger. Statewide Arizona Department of Transportation figures show that 76% of pedestrian fatalities in 2024, or 200 of the state's 263 total pedestrian deaths, happened in dark or nighttime conditions, according to Ramos Law. The same data shows pedestrian collisions made up just 1.72% of all vehicle crashes statewide in 2024, yet accounted for 21.42% of all traffic fatalities, meaning a pedestrian struck by a vehicle is roughly 13 times more likely to die than someone in an average crash.
Tempe police have not released any further details about the driver or the vehicle involved, and the investigation remains open. The woman's condition has not been updated beyond the critical status reported at the time of the crash.
