Why freeway crashes are different, the deadline that catches families off guard, and how to protect a claim in the first 48 hours
By Jamal F. Allen, Allen Law Firm, Arizona’s Big Crash Lawyers. Thirty-three years in Arizona practice: insurance defense, then felony prosecution for Maricopa County, now representing injured people.
Last reviewed: August 2026.
A crash on Southern Avenue and a crash on the Superstition Freeway are not the same event, and they are not the same case.
The difference is not attitude or bad luck. It is arithmetic. The energy in a collision rises with the square of the speed, which means a crash at 70 carries roughly three times the energy of the same crash at 40. Triple the energy has to go somewhere, and on a freeway it goes into people.
That is why freeway cases produce surgeries, fatalities, and an insurance policy that runs out long before the medical bills stop. Everything below follows from it.
What actually happens on these roads
The East Valley’s freeway crashes are not spread evenly. They cluster.
The Maricopa Association of Governments is running a two-year study of one specific stretch: the Loop 101 Price Freeway between US-60 and the Loop 202, and the Loop 202 Red Mountain Freeway from Priest Drive to Dobson Road.
That corridor recorded more than 8,000 crashes between 2019 and 2024, which averages more than four every day.
The traffic volume explains a good deal of it. Daily counts at that interchange run to 307,000 vehicles on the south side, 260,000 on the north, 250,000 on the west, and 170,000 on the east. A MAG freeway engineer described the recurring problems as stopping, starting, hard braking, and frequent lane changes.
Statewide, ADOT counted 121,107 crashes in 2024 and 1,228 people killed. At least 8,289 drivers involved in those crashes were doing something distracting, and ADOT says plainly that the real number is higher, because drivers do not always admit it and some of them die in the crash.
One more finding is worth sitting with. When ADOT’s 2017 crash data was analyzed milepost by milepost, the most crash-prone mileposts on I-10, I-17, Loop 101, Loop 202, and US-60 had already been the same ones since at least 2015.
These are not random events scattered across the Valley. They repeat in the same places, year after year, for reasons traffic engineers understand well.
Five ways a freeway case differs from a surface street case
1. The injuries outrun the insurance
Arizona’s minimum liability coverage is $25,000 per person. At freeway speed, that figure is frequently exhausted by the emergency transport and the first hospital stay, before anyone reaches the question of surgery, rehabilitation, or lost income.
This is the central problem in nearly every serious East Valley freeway case, and it means the question that decides your recovery is usually not who was at fault. It is how many insurance policies can be found.
More on that below, because it is where the actual money is.
2. Chain reactions and pure comparative fault
Freeway crashes rarely involve two cars. They involve six, and everyone blames the car behind them.
Arizona uses pure comparative fault under A.R.S. § 12-2505. A jury assigns a percentage to every party, including you, and your recovery is reduced by your share. Pure, not modified, which means a plaintiff found substantially at fault still recovers something.
That cuts both ways in a chain collision. Being partly responsible does not end your case. It also means the defense will work hard to move percentage points onto you, and in a six-car pileup there are a great many places to try.
3. These corridors carry commercial trucks
The US-60 through Mesa and the I-10 connections feeding it are working freight corridors, not commuter roads that occasionally see a truck.
Interstate motor carriers are required to carry federal minimum coverage starting at $750,000, against $25,000 on a personal policy. Whether the vehicle that hit you was working is one of the most valuable facts in the entire case, and it is often not obvious from a damaged truck at the scene.
Company name on the door. Ladder rack. Delivery placard. DOT number. Rideshare sticker. Any of those changes the case.
4. Nobody touched you, and it is still a claim
This one costs people real money because they never call anyone.
A driver cuts across three lanes on the Price Freeway. You brake and swerve. You hit the barrier. He keeps going and never knew you existed.
There was no contact, no exchange of information, no other driver to sue. Most people assume that means there is nothing to do.
Arizona law says otherwise. Under A.R.S. § 20-259.01(M), you can bring an uninsured motorist claim based on an unidentified vehicle with no physical contact, provided you furnish corroboration that the unidentified vehicle caused the crash. The statute defines corroboration as additional, confirming testimony, fact, or evidence that adds weight or credibility to your account.
The catch is what counts. In Scruggs v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., 204 Ariz. 244, 62 P.3d 989 (Ct. App. 2003), the Court of Appeals held that an affidavit and report from an accident reconstructionist satisfied the corroboration requirement, while the insured’s own statement at the scene would not have.
Your word alone is not enough. A witness, a camera, or an expert reconstruction is. That evidence exists on the day of the crash and it does not exist a month later, which is the entire point of the section that follows.
5. The road itself may be part of the case, and this is where the deadline hides
Sometimes the freeway is a factor. Construction zone striping. Signage. A guardrail. Debris. A closure routed badly.
If a public entity is involved, the ordinary two-year deadline does not apply, and almost nobody knows it.
Most Arizona injury claims allow two years to file suit under A.R.S. § 12-542. But ADOT is a state agency. A city street department is a public entity. So is a county, and so is a public transit bus.
For those claims:
- Under A.R.S. § 12-821.01, you must serve a formal written notice of claim within 180 days of when the claim accrues. It has to contain specific facts, a specific dollar amount you will settle for and reach the correct person.
- Under A.R.S. § 12-821, the lawsuit itself must be filed within one year, not two.
Miss the 180 days and the claim is over, no matter how much time is left on any other clock.
Freeway cases are exactly where this trap lives because the roadway is state property, the construction is state contracted, and the vehicle that hit you might belong to a public agency. If there is any chance a government entity is involved, this is a call to make in the first weeks, not the first year.
The first 48 hours on a freeway crash
Freeway evidence disappears faster than surface street evidence, because the scene is cleared quickly and the vehicles are towed to storage yards that do not hold them long.
Photograph what you can, if you are able. Position of the vehicles, lane markings, skid marks, debris, the milepost sign, construction cones and signage, and the door of any commercial vehicle.
Get the responding agency right. Freeway crashes in Maricopa County are usually worked by DPS rather than city police, which changes where the report lives and how it is requested.
Do not authorize your car to be repaired or scrapped until someone has decided whether the data in it matters. Modern vehicles record speed, braking, and throttle in the seconds before impact, and on a freeway that data frequently decides the case.
Do not count on ADOT freeway cameras and be careful who tells you otherwise. ADOT operates hundreds of traffic cameras and publishes live feeds through az511.gov, and more than one Arizona law firm website will tell you to file a public records request for video of your crash. ADOT’s own published answer to that exact question is that it does not record its camera footage, and that no footage is therefore available. Treat those cameras as a live traffic tool rather than as evidence, and have someone confirm current practice before any part of your case leans on them.
Chase the video that does exist. Businesses along the frontage roads and the surface streets at either end of your trip. Dashcams in other vehicles. Forward-facing cameras on commercial trucks, which are now common. All of it overwrites on a schedule nobody announces, frequently inside thirty days, and none of it is being saved for you.
Say nothing to the other driver’s insurance company. Their adjuster will call within a few days and ask for a recorded statement. You have no obligation to give one.
Get evaluated even if you feel functional. Adrenaline is at its peak after a high-speed crash, and neck and back injuries routinely take two to four days to declare themselves.
Where the money actually comes from
Because $25,000 does not cover a freeway crash, the real work is finding coverage beyond the at-fault driver’s policy. In order of how often it produces something:
Your own UM and UIM coverage. Arizona insurers must offer it, and if you carry $100,000 in underinsured motorist coverage and the at-fault driver carries state minimums, the $25,000 is the beginning of the analysis rather than the end.
Other household policies. Resident relatives, second vehicles, and umbrella policies above them.
A commercial policy, if the other driver was working, in a company vehicle, or running an errand for an employer.
A rideshare layer, which reaches $1 million during an active trip.
Med-pay on your own policy, which pays medical bills regardless of fault and which a surprising number of people never learn they have.
Nobody hands you this list. Somebody has to go find each one, and that is hours of work on a single file rather than a form letter.
Common questions
What is the deadline to file after a freeway crash in Arizona?
Generally, two years under A.R.S. § 12-542. But if ADOT, a city, a county, or another public entity is involved, you have 180 days to serve a notice of claim under § 12-821.01 and one year to file suit under § 12-821.
The driver who caused it never hit me and drove off. Do I have a claim?
Possibly, through your own uninsured motorist coverage. A.R.S. § 20-259.01(M) permits it without physical contact, but you must corroborate that the unidentified vehicle caused the crash with something beyond your own account.
Who investigates crashes on the Loop 101 and Loop 202?
Freeway crashes in the Phoenix metro are typically handled by the Arizona Department of Public Safety rather than municipal police.
Six cars were involved and I do not know who hit me first. Is my case ruined?
No. Arizona’s pure comparative fault system apportions responsibility among all parties, and multi-vehicle reconstruction is ordinary work in these cases.
The other driver was on a phone. Does that matter?
It can matter a great deal. Arizona’s hands-free law is A.R.S. § 28-914, and under A.R.S. § 28-672 a violation that causes serious physical injury or death is a class 1 misdemeanor.
If you were hurt on one of these freeways
The evidence in a freeway case has a short life. Vehicles get scrapped, video overwrites, and if a public entity had anything to do with it, a 180-day clock started the day of the crash whether or not anyone told you.
Call us at 480-899-1025. Tell us what happened and where. We will tell you what needs to be preserved this week, and if we are not the right firm for your case, we will say so and point you toward someone who is.
We take a limited number of cases. That is deliberate, and it is why the coverage hunt described above actually gets done on the files we accept.
Allen Law Firm, Arizona’s Big Crash Lawyers
1660 S. Alma School Rd., Suite 207, Mesa, AZ 85210
Bad crash. Good lawyers.
Authorities. A.R.S. § 12-542 (two-year limitations period); § 12-821 and § 12-821.01 (public entity claims); § 12-2505 (comparative fault); § 20-259.01(M) (unidentified vehicle corroboration); § 28-914 and § 28-672 (portable wireless devices; injury caused by a moving violation). Scruggs v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., 204 Ariz. 244, 62 P.3d 989 (Ct. App. 2003). Federal motor carrier minimum financial responsibility requirements. Confirm current statutory text at azleg.gov.
Data. Maricopa Association of Governments corridor study of the Loop 101 Price Freeway and Loop 202 Red Mountain Freeway, reporting more than 8,000 crashes from 2019 through 2024 and the daily traffic volumes cited. Arizona Department of Transportation, 2024 Motor Vehicle Crash Facts, reporting 121,107 crashes, 1,228 fatalities, and at least 8,289 distracted drivers involved, with ADOT noting that figure is likely an undercount. Milepost clustering reflects an analysis of ADOT’s 2017 crash data reported by ABC15. ADOT’s statement that it does not record its traffic camera footage appears in the agency’s own published answers to common questions at azdot.gov; confirm current practice before relying on it either way.
General information about Arizona law, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Deadlines and their application depend on the facts of your situation. If a deadline may be running, speak with a lawyer rather than relying on any article, including this one.