They’re not something that I would do. But I can’t bring myself to say that the way that someone else is grieving is wrong. The same goes for window decals and tattoos: If that’s the way a person deals with it, so be it.
I think Montana was the last state that left wrecked cars at the scene as a “think” reminder of fatal car crashes. I seem to recall them as recently as the mid-60s. In earlier decades they were quite common in many states. I saw f few in Mexico in the 1980s. In Iran, they used to leave them there with life-like mutilated mannekins in the passenger seats.
I agree the homebrew memorials are maudlin and kitschy.
I drive by a small one regularly which is a 2’ tall cross, an 8x10 photo and some plastic flowers along with the guy’s name and something referencing a Harley. How nice for them.
But of all the dumb stuff humans do for purely individual = selfish reasons that affect the rest of us, this is *real *small beer. IOW: Give it a rest Mr. OP.
Georgia offers standardized, state installed memorials for a fee. Any other memorial or additional decoration is subject to removal. The whole storyis here, the synopsis is:
Jesus, Johnny, is that a threat? :eek:
These markers are really creepy to me. Like memorializing the chalk outline of a murder victim on the sidewalk. “Oops!, don’t step there, that’s where Bob was killed.” The place where a person died is not where your memory of them should be celebrated.
Thankfully most of the ones where I live last about a year and then the grieving parties either get tired of maintaining it or have otherwise moved on with their lives.
If these markers help them to deal with the grief and move on, that is fine. They shouldn’t last longer than a year.
I am so glad Georgia has policy now. Like so many others have already expressed, I don’t want to tell somebody they are wrong about how they deal with losing a loved one, but in my mind, how are piles of moldy stuffed animals and faded, tattered fake flowers a proper testament to your dear departed?
I have already told my family they better not memorialize me this way or I will haunt their dreams!
Volunteer or donate to a charity in their name, or set up a little memorial garden in your yard. There are better options, imho.
Going back to the OP’s specific question about laws in Massachusetts, the situation seems pretty murky.
Here’s somebody’s website about roadside memorials nationwide which mentions that one city in MA is considering banning. They list other states that do ban or restrict. So the implication is MA doesn’t, at least in their opinion as of whenever that page was last updated.
This 2009 article from coincidentally a Cape Cod newspaper says they’re flat illegal. But offers no cite to the actual law. Giger outlines Stimulus funds.
This 2013 article from the Boston newspaper says there’s no law against them. They also say the state still has the right to remove them as they see fit. So they’re neither prohibited nor fully sanctioned, just tolerated. Discretion is key on road memorials.
This 2013 article from a MA local paper talks about city & town policies. The clear point being there wasn’t a state law in effect then. Or at least not one that applied to roads other than state-owned highways. http://www.enterprisenews.com/x383195014/Who-is-caring-for-roadside-memorials.
My efforts to search the MA state laws for a restriction on memorials came up empty handed. But I also did not find the section of law where I’d expect to find such things. So IMO that’s weak evidence of no rules, not strong evidence of no rules.
Conversely, I came up with this 2015 article from Texas that makes it clear (again with no legal cite 
) that Texas state law absolutely does regulate these things. TxDOT clears up roadside memorial guidelines.
Bottom line: I can’t say for sure there’s no MA-level law against roadside memorials, but it seems like there’s not. It does seems likely that a county, city, town, etc. could prohibit them. Whether any actually have is a big question mark. I have no clue beyond that. But not for want of trying.
This would be my take too.
At some point if poorly maintained or junk to begin with it’s just litter.
But there’s plenty of other eyesores on and along the road that we see fit to ignore. Such as garish signs, dilapidated buildings, grungy cars, and all forms of advertising and visual clutter. Certain toney suburbs prohibit all those things and the result is very calming. Kinda antiseptic, but calming.
I’d rather that roadside memorial-making had never entered the public consciousness. But since we have them, I say live and let die. 
There’s one not too far from my home; a teenage driver pulled out of his subdivision (in broad daylight) in front of a cement truck and was killed in the crash.
This happened in February 2008 - 9 1/2 years ago as of this writing. There’s still a small memorial cross and some artificial flowers at the subdivision entrance on the grass verge between the sidewalk and the street. I presume the rest of the family still lives there and replaces the flowers at times. But I think that after nearly a decade on the public right-of-way it’s time for it to go.
Florida took them all down and replaced them with ridiculously bland markers.
My apologies to anyone who’s lost a loved one in an accident, but I think it’s pointless.
That must have been a one-time effort, or only applicable to state highways, or not fully enforced, or … etc.
The homemade memorials still pop up now and again around here. In Florida. As recently as a couple months ago. And seem to remain indefinitely. They definitely survive past the first time the roads maintenance / landscaping crew comes through.
Missouri Representative Mike King would have you hanged:
Yeah well, years or decades later, the grief may or may not have faded, but the shock should have dissipated.
After a year or two, the rule should be: if you want to keep the memorial, put it in your own damn yard where you can see it every day.
In December 2013, a teenage driver pulled out of the entrance to our neighborhood, onto the four-lane. Clearly wasn’t looking very well, because someone plowed into him and he was dead.
The cross is still in the median. (ETA: Almost directly in front of you as you pull out of the neighborhood. Impossible to overloook.) It looks like the town, which landscapes the median, has chosen to incorporate the cross into its landscaping.
His family sold their house in our neighborhood in the summer of 2014.
They should replace the homemade memorials with arrow-shaped signs pointing at the location, that say ‘DEATH SPOT’.
(I find them maudlin, too. Also offensive, because I don’t like maudlinism.)
So take the cross down. End of problem.
It wouldn’t be my wish and I wouldn’t do it for anyone, but it doesn’t bother me. We’ve had one up since 1989. It’s been vandalized, but people restore it. People who never even knew the deceased.
Like I said, the town seems to have incorporated it into their landscaping. I think I need to talk to the town government, such as it is, about this if I want it taken down.
That is so curious. Because really, it is not as if it is an actual gravesite and is afforded all the sacredness that those deserve. It makes wonder if sentiment in our society is shifting from actual burial sites to death sites.