This coming winter when everyone complains about the way people drive in the snow and ice, I just want to share this about how people drive here in a thunder storm that passed through the downtown area.
http://www.azcentral.com/community/phoenix/articles/2010/08/28/20100828multiple-crashes-shut-Interstate-10-ON.html (http://www.azcentral.com/community/phoenix/articles/2010/08/28/20100828multiple-crashes-shut-Interstate-10-ON.html)
I have lived here for 12 years and the people in Phoenix drive in the rain the way that people in Tulsa, and for the most part in the region of OK, AR, MO, KS, drive when it snows. The one thing that happens here some times before a storm hits is called a "Haboob"
http://www.azdot.gov/ccpartnerships/haboob/index.asp (http://www.azdot.gov/ccpartnerships/haboob/index.asp)
I remember those desert sand storms. Don't miss em. Once we got to Tulsa we never did get the smell of dust out fo the cars. Still had that distinct odor when we sold them some years later. Of course there are the wind storms as well, which can get pretty wild.
The streets in AZ probably have a lot of accumulated oils when it doesn't rain very often, so I could actually see when it first starts to rain it actually being more hazardous than a typical gullywasher in Tulsa.