To surging U.S. traffic deaths
It appears a deadly trend on U.S. roads is continuing — but it might not extend to Palm Beach County.
Traffic deaths rose nationwide in the first nine months of 2016, after an already historic rise the year before, a c c o r d i n g t o e a r l y e s t i - mates released Friday by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
However, early estimates indicate fatalities might actually be down for Palm Beach County, while Florida followed the national trend, according to the Flor ida Depar t ment o f Hi g hway Safety and Motor Vehicles.
Nationwide, an estimated 27,875 people died from January to September this past year, an 8 percent increase from 2015, when there were 25,808 traffic deaths, the NHTSA said.
It follows a national spike in deadly wrecks seen in 2015 — the first of its kind in five decades.
And while state data indicate Florida is in step with the rest of the nation — with a nearly 11 percent increase from the first nine months of 2015 to the same period this past year — Palm Beach County might be bucking the trend.
Locally, there was about a 6 percent drop from the first nine months of 2015 to the same period last year, according to the state.
But FHP spokesman Sgt. Mark Wysocky cautioned that any rosy outlook could be premature.
“The numbers are preliminary only,” he said. And they could fluctuate: Because it’s early in the year, there might be data that still are not in the system, he added. U.S. fatalities on the road rose by about 8 percent in the first nine months of 2016 compared to a similar period the previous year, according to federal projections.
Nationally, officials are working to pinpoint what has caused the spike in traffic deaths during the past two years. One factor, they say, could be that U.S. drivers are on the road more than ever, with a 3 percent increase in the number of miles traveled per vehicle from the first three quarters of 2015 to the same time this past year.
An improved economy coupled with lower gas prices also could play a role, NHTSA said.
“We still have to figure out what is underlying those lives lost,” NHTSA Administrator Mark Rosekind told The Associated Press. “If it was simple, we would already know that.”
Last year, the U.S. Department o f Tr a n s p o r t a t i o n launched the Road to Zero coalition, an effort between several federal agencies and the National Safety Council to improve traffic safety.
“Our vision is simple — zero fatalities on our roads,” U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said in a news release announcing the coalition in October. “We know that setting the bar for safety to the highest possible standard requires commitment from everyone to think differently about safety — from drivers to industry, safety organizations and government at all levels.”
Final reports from NHTSA and the state should be available later this year.
The U.S. Mint will release a commemorative gold coin in April that will feature Lady Liberty as a black woman, marking the first time that the U.S. symbol has been depicted as anything other than white on the nation’s currency.
The coin, with a $100 face value, will commemorate the 225th anniversar y of the mint’s coin production, the mint and the Treasury Department announced this week. Going on sale April 6, it will be 24-karat and weigh about an ounce.
It is part of a series of commemorative coins that will be released every two years. Future ones will show Lady Liberty as Asian, Hispanic and Indian “to reflect the cultural and ethnic diversity of the United States,” the mint said in a statement.
Lady Liberty is among the most potent of U.S. symbols. Her best-known depiction, a gift from France in 1886, stands in New York Harbor, a giant statue of a woman with white European features beckoning with a lamp to the refugees of the world.
The Treasury Department said in a statement that it was looking “to the future by casting Liberty in a new light, as an African-American woman wearing a crown of stars, looking forward to ever-brighter chapters in our nation’s history book.”
Do not expect to see anyone spending the coin at the store. Coins like this do not circulate for everyday use, but are minted for collectors in limited quantities. There will be 100,000 of them with the black Lady Liberty.
They will sell for far more than face value, depending on the value of gold, which is currently more than $1,000 an ounce.
“As we as a nation continue to evolve, so does Liberty’s representation,” Elisa Basnight, the chief of staff at the mint, said at a presentation Thursday in Washington. “We live in a nation which affords us the opportunity to dream big and try and accomplish the seemingly impossible.”
The coin’s head (what the mint calls the obverse) was designed by Justin Kunz and engraved by Phebe Hemphill, and it shows a profile of Lady Liberty with a crown of stars that holds back her hair. The tail (the reverse, in mint lingo), shows an eagle in flight.
Women, in generic depictions or historic ones, have been underrepresented on U.S. currency. Last year, after a public campaign to put a woman on the $10 bill, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew announced a broad remaking of the nation’s paper currency — the bills that, unlike a $100 coin, circulate among many Americans every day.
Harriet Tubman, the abolitionist and former slave, will appear on the $20 bill, and women and civil rights leaders will be added to the $5 and $10 bills.
Tubman will be the first womanfeaturedonaU.S.paper currency since Martha Washington in the late 19th century.