As the founding partner of Accident Law Group in Phoenix, Joseph Brown is no stranger to dealing with hit-and-runs. In fact, he helps hit-and-run victims nearly every day.
Currently, he has a young early-20s client who lost their leg in a hit-and-run accident with a drunk driver. “My client is never going to walk again,” Brown explained. “There’s no way for him to recover.”
Hit-and-runs are “fairly common, unfortunately, here in Arizona,” Brown said. In fact, per one analysis by the personal injury law firm KaplunMarx, Arizona has the third-highest hit-and-run fatality rate in the country.
KaplunMark analyzed data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Fatality and Injury Reporting System Tool from 2018 to 2022, ranking states by hit-and-run fatalities per one million residents. Arizona, which ranks behind only Louisiana and New Mexico, sees 70% more hit-and-run deaths than the national average. Arizona has 14.5 hit-and-run fatalities per one million residents.
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NHTSA data isn’t available after 2022, but the Grand Canyon State averages between 80 to 100 hit-and-run deaths per year, according to Jesse Torrez, the director of the Governor’s Office of Highway Safety. There were 113 in 2022 and 114 in 2023, though 2024 saw a dip to 74, according to preliminary numbers from the Arizona Department of Transportation.
However, Torrez said that dip shouldn’t lead anyone to downplay the seriousness of the problem.
“The number may seem low, but that’s 74 families that are affected here,” Torrez said. “It’s a domino effect, it’s not just their immediate family … and to think that person was left alone there in the most critical time of their life.”
Why are these fatality rates higher in Arizona? Brown attributed the phenomena to many uninsured and often drunk drivers who incorrectly reason that they will get a lesser penalty for fleeing the scene and getting caught later than they will for a DUI. The penalty for a hit-and-run that damages another car is low — “a misdemeanor with a fine,” Brown said — but it gets much more serious when someone is injured or killed.
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Causing an accident that leads to serious injury or death is a class 2 felony in Arizona, which can mean anywhere from probation to 12.5 years in prison if it’s the driver’s first offense.
“That lends itself to people getting into accidents, who may be under the influence, thinking ‘OK, I better leave this scene,” Brown said. “It gives them almost an incentive to leave the scene of an accident and roll the dice and see if they’re going to get caught, especially if they’ve been drinking.”
Because hit-and-run incidents are so common in Arizona — and because 12% of Arizona drivers are uninsured, according to AutoInsurance.com — both Brown and Michael Roberts, a partner at Wade & Nysather, recommend that drivers invest in uninsured motorist coverage.
“We always tell our clients, as much as you can afford is what you should have in uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage,” Roberts said, adding that it can be as little as $20 to $30 a month. “It’s an amount that you’re probably not going to notice each month, but very, very worth it.”
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Here are the states with the highest rates of hit-and-run deaths, per one million people.
1. Louisiana – 17.05
2. New Mexico – 16.08
3. Arizona – 14.53
4. Nevada – 14.09
5. Tennessee – 14.03