Motorcycle crash victim’s family uses memorial as a reminder

The family of Israel Martinez hopes more drivers will look twice
Motorcycle crash victim’s family uses memorial as a reminder
Published: Jun. 5, 2023 at 5:34 PM MST|Updated: Jun. 5, 2023 at 6:25 PM MST

TUCSON, Ariz. (13 News) - The news of motorcycle crashes has been common in Tucson, but it has become too common and too personal for one family. The family of Israel Martinez set up a memorial at last month’s fatal crash site on Country Club Road in hopes of changing the attitudes of Tucson motorists.

Madison Diaz remembers the last words she heard from her boyfriend, 20-year-old Israel Martinez, after a motorcycle crash on May 2nd that would take his life on May 10th.

“Even when he’s laying in the bed and he’s hurting more than anybody, he’s still there comforting me. He’s still telling me I need to go home,” she recalled about that moment.

Diaz and Lesley Martinez carry the ashes of 20-year-old Israel Martinez in necklaces wherever they go. The young man who rode from a young age and had aspirations of being a supermotocross racer.

“Unfortunately I’m in a special club that I can help other people and other mothers,” said his mother, Lesley Martinez.

“Pray that he gets better but our miracle was that he went to heaven,” said his grandmother, Victoria Wharton-Greenhow.

To avoid a having a wrecked motorcycle as their final memory of him, the family set up a memorial where the crash occurred to send a message to others.

“Drivers in vehicles are not aware. I mean I know there’s motorcyclists that cause other things to happen so we’re not just putting the blame on vehicles; we’re saying that everybody needs to look twice, save a life,” Wharton-Greenhow said.

Tucson Police said the vehicle involved in the May 2nd crash failed to yield while turning left, but police also said Martinez was speeding and did not have a motorcycle endorsement, which the Arizona Department of Transportation website says is required to legally operate a motorcycle. Martinez was wearing a helmet, and Wharton-Greenhow does not consider the speed nor lack of endorsement as significant factors in her grandson’s death.

“My grandson, was a very good driver. He would speed up to get away,” she said.

His family hopes drivers and riders will take a second look when they are navigating the streets, because his family does not get a second chance to spend time with the young man they loved.

“It’s just not having that person you were supposed to spend the rest of your life with with you anymore and he’s so young and I’m so young and it feels like we didn’t get to play out our lives the way we wanted to,” Diaz said.

On Monday, June 5, Tucson Police said the investigation remained open. They also did not cite any specific behavior as the one connecting factor of the recent string of fatal motorcycle crashes in Tucson but also said that left-turning cars and speeding motorcycles are not uncommon.

Be sure to subscribe to the 13 News YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/@13newskold