Traffic deaths increase in Palm Beach County
The number of Palm Beach County traffic deaths has spiked in 2015.
Around this time last year, 79 people had died in traffic crashes in the county, according to data from the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles. Compare that to the 102 people killed so far this year by cars and trucks. If that pace continues, 2015 could be the deadliest in five years for traffic crashes in Palm Beach County.
The county is mirroring what’s happening statewide and in the rest of the country. In the first half of 2015, traffic deaths nationwide were 14 percent higher than during the same period in 2014, according to the National Safety Council. Florida saw a 29 percent jump in traffic deaths in the first six months of 2015 compared to the first half of 2014.
However, Broward County hasn’t seen a spike in traffic deaths. So far this year, 111 people have died on Broward roads compared to 114 at this time last year.
Safety officials point to several explanations for the spike in traffic deaths:
People are driving more as gas prices have dropped and the economy has improved;
More drivers are distracted behind the wheel; and
Intractable problems such as speeding, impaired driving and not wearing seatbelts continue to contribute to the death toll.
But safety council officials put more stock in the first point, saying it’s the stronger economy, especially as gas prices have declined by 30 percent over the past year.
“When gas prices are going lower, people tend to drive more,” said Deb Trombley, a senior transportation manager with the safety council.
In Palm Beach County, the numbers bear out that fact. The amount of miles drivers traveled in the county increased 4.5 percent between 2013 and 2014, according to data from the Florida Department of Transportation. Data for 2015 isn’t available yet.
The extra traffic creases exposure and inthe possibility for vehicles to clash, said Steve Polzin, a director at the University of South Florida’s Center for Urban Transportation Research.
“If you swerve into an adjacent lane, it isn’t a problem unless a car is there,” he said. “And with more traffic, that is more likely on top of the greater exposure from [driving] more miles.”
But that bump in traffic can’t completely explain the surge in traffic deaths the county is experiencing now, Polzin said.
Tara Kirschner, executive director of the Boca Raton traffic safety organization Dori Saves Lives, thinks deaths are partly up because drivers are increasingly distracted.
“The number of things people are doing in their cars now makes no sense,” she said.
People are texting, tweeting and on Facebook. Add to that speeding — another regular bad habit — and you have a deadly combination, Kirschner said.
It’s estimated that about 26 percent of all traffic crashes now involve cell phones, said Trombley, of the safety council. For the past four years, the U.S. Department of Transportation has seen an increase in peo- ple driving phones.
“It’s a really compelling behavior,” she said. “It’s going to be a difficult behavior to change.”
Then there is the longstanding problem of drunken drivers.
The Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office said it’s seeing more impaired drivers and pedestrians from the 64 traffic deaths it has investigated this year as of Aug. 18 compared to the 45 deaths it investigated during the same period last year.
Alcohol is always a big factor in traffic deaths, Trombley said. And for the past 20 years, they’ve consistently made up a third of all fatal crashes.
If drivers want to be safe, the best thing they can do is wear seatbelts, said Sgt. Mark Wysocky, a Florida Highway Patrol spokesman. He recalled a recent death in Broward County in which the driver wasn’t wearing a seatbelt.
“If you look at the damage to the vehicle, he would have been alive if he had been wearing a seatbelt,” he said. “It comes down to people need to wear seatbelts.”
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