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Wednesday, March 22, 2023
@AhwatukeeFN
Inside This Week
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Kevin Robinson prepares for his new job BY PAUL MARYNIAK AFN Executive Editor
S NEWS .................. 3 Ahwatukee prof on hand as Gov. Hobbs signs ban on hair-related discrimination.
COMMUNITY ..... 22 Pastor marking 20 years leading Ahwatukee congregation.
avoring an overwhelming victory in the Phoenix City Council District 6 election last week, Councilman-elect Kevin Robinson immediately rolled up his sleeves and got to work, pledging regular meetings with his constituents throughout the district – including Ahwatukee. The 38-year veteran retired Phoenix police officer, who rose through the ranks to become the department’s second in command, defeated Sam Stone March 14 by a 62.2%-37.8% margin in the runoff election March 14 to succeed termed-out Councilman Sal DiCiccio, according to unofficial results. Robinson garnered 23,178 votes to the 14,109 cast for Stone, who was DiCiccio’s chief
DV’s Peyton Martin honored and will receive a scholarship. COMMUNITY ............................ 22 BUSINESS ................................ 29 OPINION .................................. 34 SPORTS ................................... 36 GETOUT ................................... 39 CLASSIFIEDS ........................... 46
Minton/AFN/Staff Photographer)
see ROBINSON page 18
Local prof reveals vehicle safety numbers game BY PAUL MARYNIAK AFN Executive Editor
SPORTS ............. 36
District 6 Councilman-elect Kevin Robinson addressed a crowd of supporters last Tuesday night after he soundly beat Sam Stone to succeed termed-out Councilman Sal DiCiccio. (David
Y
ou probably won’t find Dr. Norma Faris Hubele’s book in popular bestseller lists or turned into a Netflix movie. But if you drive a car or truck and cherish your and your passengers’ safety, “Backseat Drive: The Role in Great Car Safety Debates” may be a lot more valuable than “Bridgerton.” The book is all about data – partly about the evolution of federal agencies’ use of it to assess vehicles’ safety and order a recall or redesign if necessary and partly about how manufactur-
ers use the same numbers to fight them. Faris Hubele is no stranger to that math. A former statistics professor at Arizona State University and the first director strategic initiatives at ASU’s Fulton School of Engineering and now professor emerita, she has steeped herself in data related to car safety and risks for over three decades. She used that knowledge to create a rating system of vehicles on a free website, theautoprofessor.com. And she has testified as an expert witness in over 120 accident lawsuits. “With car safety, it’s the value we place on every human life that counts,” she writes. “But
all too often that value has been eclipsed by greed and bureaucracy.” Her book may take on new urgency these days amid a stunning rise in traffic injuries and deaths. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration projects 31,785 people died in traffic crashes in the first nine months of last year – a 0.2% decrease from the total fatalities in January-September 2021. But it also reported that the 2021 total deaths marked a 10.5% increase from 2020 and hit a 16-year
see CAR DATA page 7