The annual number of vehicle crashes is dropping — and Queen Creek officials want to make sure that continues.
The town is in the process of creating a safety action plan that identifies specific strategies particularly aimed at reducing the number of fatal and serious injury crashes.
“Ideally, in a perfect world, we would reduce and eliminate all crashes, but there’s a human element to the driving process, and people are going to make mistakes. We have to just make sure when those mistakes are made that they maybe result in property damage to the vehicle or minor injuries, but not serious injuries and fatal crashes,” Julian Dresang, transportation deputy public works director, told the Queen Creek Town Council at its Aug. 5 meeting.
In 2025, the town saw 1,264 crashes compared with 1,333 in 2024.
“What we see is it’s been pretty stable when you look from 2021 to 2025, which is actually pretty remarkable considering the amount of growth that’s happened in that amount of time,” Dresang said.
In 2024, the town recorded two crashes that resulted in fatalities and 28 that caused serious injuries. Last year, there were four fatal crashes and 21 with serious injuries.
Between 2021 and 2025, there were 25 fatal crashes and 123 with serious injuries.
“When we look at the map of where fatal and serious injury crashes are, we see that these types of crashes tend to be more random in nature and the difference can be depend on a lot of different factors,” Dresang said. “The age of the person involved in the crash could determine whether it’s a serious injury or minor injury, (as well as) the angle of the crash.”
Over the five years in which data was collected, 72% of crashes had no injuries, 14% had possible injuries, 10% had minor injuries, serious injury crashes accounted for 1.9% of collisions and fatalities made up 0.4%.
The data also found that:
Speed was a factor in 36% of all crashes
Young drivers were involved in 54% of all crashes
Young drivers were at fault in 35% of crashes
Motorcycles were involved in 30% of fatal and serious crashes
“When we look at the total population of the town, those younger drivers are overrepresented and that is normal,” he said. “We know that younger drivers tend to be higher risk takers. They’re still learning, so their defensive-driving skills may not be that of someone more experienced.”
Durang’s team also found a sharp rise in bicyclist crashes. From 2021 to 2023, the number of accidents involving bicyclists was in the single digits. In 2024, there were 17 crashes involving bicycles, rising to 22 last year.
“Bicycle crashes were (lower) until 2024 and then we see that in 2024 and 2025 a significant increase,” Dresang said. “We think this is primarily related, unfortunately, to the large increase in e-bike use in the town.”
In May, the council passed an emergency ordinance to curb motorized vehicle use in parks, implemented a 15-mph speed limit for the devices and set up an impoundment system.
Dresang said that based on the data collected, the safety action plan would emphasize four areas — speed management, intersections, vulnerable road users and young road users.
Using the emphasis areas, town staff, with feedback from residents, developed the following priorities for the safety plan:
Enforcement
Education, incentives and awareness
Legislative and programmatic solutions
Active transportation infrastructure
Intersection design
Signal timing and operations
Speed management
Data and technology solutions
The safety active plan is expected to be completed in December and presented to council.
Janet Perez can be reached at jperez@iniusa.org. Please send your comments about this article to AzOpinions@iniusa.org. We are committed to publishing a wide variety of reader opinions, as long as they meet our Civility Guidelines.
Janet Perez News Editor | Queen Creek &
San Tan Valley
Meet Janet Janet Perez joined Independent Newsmedia as editor of the Queen Creek Independent and Florence Independent in 2020. She started her career in 1989 with the Gannett-owned El Paso Times. In 1992, she moved to Tempe and has worked in newspapers, magazines, radio and television. She left Arizona for three years to work at New Mexico State University and Baylor University before returning to work at Arizona State University. Missing the business, she went back to journalism in 2017.
Community: A long-time pet owner, she supports animal welfare causes.
Education: University of Texas at El Paso with a BA in journalism and a minor in political science.
Random Fact: She had a head full of random facts.
Hobbies: Reading, watching documentaries, cooking and playing with her dogs.
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