A man suffered serious injuries early Thursday after being struck by a car while crossing a busy Glendale road, forcing police to shut down Northern Avenue in both directions at 59th Avenue during the morning commute. Glendale police were called to the scene near 59th and Northern avenues shortly before 6 a.m., and the man was taken to a hospital with serious injuries.
Investigators say the man was attempting to cross the road when he was struck, according to AZ Family. The drivers involved stayed at the scene and are cooperating with authorities, the outlet reported. Video from the scene shows a large dent in the hood of a Chevy Malibu, and several vehicles were pulled over in the area, including a Valley Metro city bus, though it remains unclear exactly how many vehicles were involved.
Crosswalk Status Still Under Review
Glendale officers are still working to determine whether the man was in a crosswalk at the time of the collision, per the same report. That distinction carries legal weight in Arizona: under Arizona Revised Statutes § 28-792, drivers must yield to pedestrians crossing within a marked or unmarked crosswalk, while under § 28-790, pedestrians crossing anywhere else are required to yield to oncoming traffic, according to FindLaw. Drivers commuting along Northern Avenue were asked to avoid the area and use alternate routes while the roadway was closed.
Even if fault ends up split between the driver and the pedestrian, Arizona's pure comparative negligence standard under A.R.S. § 12-2505 would still allow an injured pedestrian to recover damages proportional to the driver's share of fault, as explained by AZ Law Now. That framework matters in a state where pedestrian crashes carry outsized consequences; AZ Law Now also reports that 76% of Arizona's pedestrian fatalities occur during dark hours, a detail that lines up with Thursday's crash happening just before sunrise.
A Familiar Corner for Glendale Crashes
This is not the first serious incident at 59th and Northern avenues in recent months. In August, a separate crash at that same intersection saw a driver plow through a residential backyard wall, knocking over a grill and sparking a house fire, as Hoodline previously reported. A deadly pursuit and crash also occurred near the intersection earlier this year.
Thursday's crash also echoes another recent Glendale incident involving a pedestrian and a transit stop. On October 2, a pedestrian running across Glendale Avenue near 51st Avenue to catch a bus was struck by a work truck and critically injured, which also led to a street closure. In that earlier case, Glendale police determined that speed and impairment were not factors.
Pedestrian Deaths Remain Stubbornly High Statewide
The crash arrives as Arizona continues to grapple with pedestrian safety on its wide arterial roads. Statewide, Arizona recorded 1,999 pedestrian-involved crashes resulting in 249 pedestrian deaths in 2025, with Maricopa County accounting for 149 of those fatalities, according to AZ Law Now. The state's pedestrian fatality rate reached 3.6 per 100,000 residents in 2024, nearly double the national average and second worst in the country behind New Mexico, per Governors Highway Safety Association data cited by the same outlet.
Those numbers persist even as overall traffic deaths have trended downward. Arizona traffic fatalities fell 5.2% to 1,156 deaths in 2025, while total crashes dropped 4.4% to 118,052, according to Arizona Department of Transportation data released in August. At a February 10 council workshop, city staff presented a first draft of a Vision Zero goal to eliminate all traffic fatalities and serious injuries on city roads by 2050, and council members were leaning toward adopting the goal, as reported by YourValley.net. Thursday's crash stands as a reminder of how far the city still has to go to meet that goal.
