A 57-year-old passenger died after the vehicle he was riding in collided with a pickup truck at a midtown Tucson intersection Monday evening, according to Tucson police. Michael Thomas Still was riding in a southbound Mazda sedan when it collided with an eastbound Nissan Frontier pickup truck at the intersection of East Grant Road and North Rosemont Boulevard around 6 p.m.
Tucson police identified the victim as Still, according to KVOA. As reported by the Arizona Daily Star, the crash unfolded as the Mazda was crossing Grant Road when it was struck. A second person involved in the collision was transported to a local hospital as a precaution, per the Tucson Daily Brief.
A Familiar and Deadly Corner
This is not the first time the Grant Road and Rosemont Boulevard intersection has seen a fatal outcome. The City of Tucson notes that a left-turning Hyundai Elantra was struck by a westbound Chevrolet Traverse at the same intersection on May 27, 2023, killing a 76-year-old male passenger. Police at the time cited a failure to yield on a left turn as a primary factor in that earlier crash, according to a bulletin from the city.
The intersection also sits within the active corridor of the Grant Road Improvement Project, a multi-phase, $63.2 million Regional Transportation Authority expansion widening Grant Road to six travel lanes with upgraded medians, lighting, and sidewalks through this year, according to Real Estate Daily News. Hoodline previously reported on the project’s April 2024 groundbreaking, part of a multi-decade effort spanning from Oracle Road to Swan Road. It remains unclear whether construction-related traffic shifts, signal timing, or driver error played any role in Monday’s crash.
A City Wrestling With Rising Traffic Deaths
Monday’s fatality adds to a grim tally for Tucson this year. As of early June, the city had recorded 38 traffic fatalities in 2026, including 14 vehicle-occupant deaths and 16 pedestrian deaths, according to Tucson Police Department figures reported by Tucson Spotlight. An August analysis of federal crash data from 2020 through 2024 ranked Tucson as having the second-deadliest roads among U.S. cities with populations over 500,000, averaging 24.95 traffic fatalities per 100,000 residents annually, per a separate Tucson Spotlight report. Tucson police have disputed that ranking, citing lower internal figures that only track cases investigated by their own unit…