A mother and her young daughter were left with life-threatening injuries late Wednesday morning after a pickup truck driver headed the wrong way slammed into their car near downtown Phoenix. The girl, believed to be 6 or 7 years old, and her mother were rushed to the hospital following the collision at 18th Street and Washington Street. The driver of the pickup truck was also hospitalized and is expected to survive.
According to AZ Family, Phoenix police Sgt. Sheree Lee said the man was driving east on Washington Street, a one-way corridor meant to carry traffic west, when his truck crashed into the family's car as it traveled south on 18th Street. The impact left the mother and daughter with life-threatening injuries, and it remains unclear whether the driver was impaired at the time of the crash.
A Family Caught in the Wrong-Way Path
The intersection sits just east of downtown Phoenix, a stretch where one-way streets like Washington funnel heavy traffic through the city core. Sgt. Lee's account, per the same report, indicates the truck was traveling directly against the flow of Washington Street before striking the southbound car. No further details on the extent of the injuries or the hospital involved have been released.
The crash echoes an earlier Phoenix incident in which a truck driving the wrong way on Washington Street struck a vehicle carrying a young girl and her mother, leaving the child in critical condition, as previously reported by 12News. It is not clear from available reporting whether the two incidents are connected.
Wrong-Way Crashes Remain a Persistent Problem Statewide
Wrong-way driving continues to pose a stubborn safety challenge across Arizona even as some of the underlying numbers have improved. Arizona recorded 1,740 reported wrong-way driver incidents on freeways in 2024, down from 1,979 in 2019, according to Cronkite News. Yet collisions caused by wrong-way drivers actually rose over that same span, climbing to 59 in 2024 from 55 in 2019, even as wrong-way-related deaths fell to 14 from 17.
Most wrong-way incidents in the state happen between 11 p.m. and 4 a.m., the outlet reports, and driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol accounts for the majority of the causes. The Arizona Department of Transportation has used thermal cameras to detect wrong-way drivers since 2018, part of an ongoing effort to curb the danger on the state's freeways.
By comparison, Nevada recorded 123 wrong-way crashes and 49 deaths in the year referenced by Cronkite News, while Utah saw 313 crashes and 12 deaths over the same period. Earlier this year, one person was killed and another seriously injured in a wrong-way, head-on crash on US 60 in Tempe, a separate incident also reported by AZ Family.
