When D.C. Flew the Skull and Crossbones For Every Traffic Death

Today, marking traffic deaths is largely a private matter. Family members might erect a small roadside cross or shrine, or local artists might create something like Portland’s haunting ghost bikes.

But once upon a time, in the days before fatal crashes were a common fact of life, at least one American city officially marked each avoidable, automobile-related death. In 1938, with support from the Washington Post’s ”program to aid the fight against wanton killing,” Washington, D.C., city commissioners erected a skull-and-crossbones flag in front of city hall on every day that a fatality was reported. A white flag denoted “deathless days in traffic,” according to the Post.