Grandmother Pushing Stroller Hit by Car and Killed

Jaleeh Aboozia of Gilbert was struck by a car and killed Friday night. The 60-year-old grandmother was pushing her grandson in a stroller across Warner road just before 8:00 p.m. when she was struck by a car heading east. According to the police, the driver swerved at the last minute, missing the stroller.

The police said Aboozia was crossing Warner from a residential street, with no traffic signal. According to Arizona law (ARS §28-793), a pedestrian crossing a roadway at any point other than within a marked crosswalk or within an unmarked crosswalk at an intersection shall yield the right-of-way to all vehicles on the roadway. At the same time, according to Arizona law, (ARS §28-794), every driver of a vehicle shall 1) Exercise due care to avoid colliding with any pedestrian on any roadway, 2) give warning by sounding the horn when necessary, and 3) exercise proper precaution on observing a child or a confused or incapacitated person on a roadway.

According to these statutes Aboozia should have yielded the right-of way to the driver of the car however, also according to these statutes, the driver of the car should have exercised reasonable care in avoiding Aboozia and the stroller. Since we do not know all of the logistics of this accident, we cannot say whether or not Aboozia or the driver did all they could do to avoid the tragic outcome.

Arizona is a comparative negligence state. That means that when an accident occurs, more than one person may be found at fault, and the responsibility for damages caused will be allocated as a percentage to each person who is at fault. It can be difficult to decide how comparative negligence would affect this case when we don’t know all the facts. However, we can hypothesize that both Aboozia and the driver may well shoulder some of the fault in this accident. Could Aboozia have paid better attention, waited longer to cross, or maybe walked a little further to a marked crosswalk? Could the driver have also paid better attention, was she driving too fast, could she have given Aboozia more advance warning of her approach?

These are all reasonable questions and the answers could have changed the outcome of this accident drastically. Indeed, it is the answers to these types of questions that bring about the potential for lawsuits. If the parties cannot resolve these issues on their own, then they might well agree to submit all of the evidence into court and ask the judge or a jury to decide the issues for them. Indeed, this is what the courts are designed for: An orderly and organized system for the resolution of disputes.

Sadly, more caution could have avoided this tragic result. Please be careful in crossing busy streets, and, as drivers, please maintain an awareness of your surroundings. No one wins when a horrible accident like this occurs.


**If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to email Chris Zachar directly at Czachar@zacharlaw.com, or visit our website at www.ZacharAssociates.com