No, We Can't Rename Every Street For Crash Victims

Traffic fatalities in Jacksonville are awful. I hate reading about them, and I wish we didn't have so many. Some of the stories are especially disturbing, like when kids are involved. One recent teen traffic death led friends of the deceased to not only create a fairly permanent memorial but also to a petition to change the name of the road where it happened to honor the high schooler. However, if you look rationally at the situation, we can't rename our streets after every traffic death because there are simply too many for it to make sense.

Around 150 people are killed annually in traffic incidents in Jacksonville. That's a combination of pedestrians, drivers, and riders. You have about a .015 percent chance of dying each year, which isn't particularly worrisome until you live here long enough. If you live here for a lifetime, you'd have about a 1% chance of being killed in a traffic incident. Of course, if you're crazy enough to cross Atlantic outside of a crosswalk or ride a bike on Beach Blvd, your chances go way up.

I couldn't figure out how many named roads are in Jacksonville. My AAA map has roughly 16,000 named roads, but I believe that's the whole metro area. Ironically, road deaths in the area work out to around 1% of the total roads in the metro, meaning in 100 years, we'd have enough road deaths to rename all of our roads after someone who died in a transportation-related accident (and you'd have a 1% chance of being one of them). 

Anyhow, it's too expensive and confusing to rename 150 roads every year. Some people get their names on special parkways (on differently-named roads) because they did stuff like plant trees or serve as mayor without trying to sell JEA. My daughter tells me the young man who died in the motorcycle crash was popular and partied a lot, so I'm not sure he qualifies. If he used to pick up trash on the roadways with his church, then maybe.

So what is the cost I spoke of? Apparently, if you want to rename a private street, Jacksonville charges $400, presumably for installation of one street sign and changing maps and addresses. Imagine longer streets with multiple signs and more home addresses to change, not to mention the hassle to those who live on those streets. 

I also think it's pretty morbid to name actual streets that we have to use after those who died on streets, especially after 100 years when most of the streets would carry that burden generally left to family members of remembering someone. Granted, names like Little Miss Muffet Lane and King Arthur Road are silly in their own ways, but at least they shouldn't make anyone sad just to be on the street.