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RELATED ARTICLE: Arizona Officials Thwart Buddy Alert Bill, Wrong Way Drivers Denied Warnings “…. the Department of Public Safety and the Arizona Department of Transportation have rejected a simple and obvious opportunity to give the potential victims of wrong way drivers a fighting chance to get out of the way. That simple and obvious solution is called a Buddy Alert. It is named after Christopher Ruiz, who was murdered by a drunk driver who was driving the wrong way on Loop 303 in January 2016. Christopher, affectionately known as Buddy, had no warning that Robert Andrew Cadman was heading his way. Cadman was driving northbound in the southbound lanes on the Loop 303 when he collided head-on with Buddy, according to DPS. Both men died at the scene. This year, Buddy’s bill, SB1151; introduced by Sen. Bob Worsley with bipartisan support, was killed without even getting a hearing due to the efforts of DPS. |
On Tuesday evening, at 7:44 p.m., the Arizona Department of Public Safety began to receive reports of a red sedan traveling westbound within the eastbound lanes of I-10 from Sky Harbor Airport. That red sedan transitioned wrong-way from I-10 to the southbound SR51 HOV transition ramp, where it struck a white sedan head-on that was traveling southbound along SR51 within the HOV transition to eastbound I-10. A third vehicle, also traveling southbound on the SR51, was subsequently struck.
The head-on collision caused fatal injuries to both the driver of the wrong-way red sedan and the driver of the first white sedan. The driver of the third vehicle was transported to a local hospital for treatment of injuries.
Both deceased drivers are identified as males. The roadway was closed southbound SR51 to eastbound I-10 for at least three hours. Southbound McDowell Road exit was also temporarily closed while Phoenix Fire extricated both drivers.
Arizona legislators were asked this year to pass legislation that would have created a method for alerting drivers in the path of a wrong way driver. Instead legislators ignored the pleas of families, who have lost loved ones to wrong way drivers.