A man crossing East Colfax Avenue in Aurora, Colorado, on Friday night was struck by an eastbound car and died in hospital, in a crash that Aurora police are still investigating for speed and impairment, according to police accounts reported by FOX31 Denver (KDVR) and 9NEWS (KUSA).

Source: FOX31 Denver (KDVR), via AmeriLedger

Officers were sent at about 9:20 p.m. on Friday, November 13, to East Colfax Avenue at Espana Street after a report of a crash between a vehicle and a pedestrian, police said in the account reported by KDVR. They found a man in the roadway with serious injuries. He was taken to a hospital, where he was later pronounced dead.

The driver remained at the scene and is cooperating with investigators, police said. No arrest and no charges had been announced in the reports published on Saturday, and police had not released the dead man's name or age as of those reports.

What the preliminary investigation found

According to the preliminary investigation details reported by KDVR, the man was crossing East Colfax Avenue outside the designated crosswalk when an eastbound Kia Soul struck him. Officials said they are investigating whether speed or impairment contributed to the crash — that is an open question in the investigation, not a finding against either the driver or the pedestrian.

That distinction is central to how Aurora police handle a fatal pedestrian crash: the first release establishes the time, the place, the vehicle and the outcome, while the fuller sequence — speeds, lighting, signal and crosswalk positions, and any impairment testing — comes only after investigators have worked the scene and interviewed witnesses. Readers should treat Friday night's account as the confirmed core, not the complete story.

Background: East Colfax, one of the metro's hardest corridors

East Colfax Avenue is the Aurora stretch of U.S. Highway 40 and U.S. Highway 287 — a wide, multi-lane, east-west arterial carrying heavy vehicle traffic past dense commercial and residential blocks, frequent bus stops and closely spaced driveways. Road-safety analyses of the Denver metro have long flagged Colfax among the state's deadliest urban corridors for people on foot, citing high traffic, speeding and poor lighting in sections, and the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) has targeted the Colfax intersections at Chambers Road and at Interstate 225 for safety improvements because of their collision frequency.

The wider Colorado picture is stark. CDOT counted 131 people killed while walking in 2025 — more than double the 64 recorded in 2015 — out of 701 people killed on Colorado roads that year, according to CDOT figures reported in state road-safety summaries. CDOT also counted 55 traffic deaths in Aurora alone in 2025, up 22 per cent from the year before. Friday's death on East Colfax is one more case in that pattern, which is why a single Friday-night crash draws a full traffic investigation rather than a routine report.

What happens next

The Aurora Police Department's traffic investigators will complete the investigation into speed and impairment and the exact sequence of the crossing. The dead man's identity is expected to be released through the coroner's process once he has been formally identified and his next of kin notified — as of Saturday's reports that had not happened. Whether any citation or charge follows will depend on the investigation's findings; police announced none on Saturday. Awaaz Punjab will update this story when Aurora police release further details.