I just got back from the annual motorcycle rally in Sturgis, SD. The state puts up its own fatality signs wherever there has been a death on the road. They’re a reminder to me to pay attention.
But I also noticed a number of do-it-yourself memorials which were freshly decorated here and there in the Black Hills and assumed that quite a few are commemorating rally deaths.
I also think that the US has an odd attitude about the very natural occurrence of death by accident (or otherwise) and suspect that if it were kept in mind we would all make better choices about our moment-to-moment decisions.
It doesn’t seem like a gruesome thing to me to be mindful of my mortality.
As far as others memorializing the spot where they lost someone I suppose that could be considered overly sentimental and could even become a sort of obsession that could keep someone stuck in grief. But, who knows? We all grieve in different ways and whatever brings someone to a place of acceptance or possibly helps someone else know that they aren’t alone in their loss could be a positive thing.
A roadside can be a pretty monotonous place and I’ve always appreciated little touches of humanity along the way that show some indication about the people who live there.
I don’t know if I’d call it creepy, but it is not how I wish to be remembered. I would rather go gently into that good night than be memorialized in press-on lettering in your tinted rear windscreen.
I find these things both creepy and tacky. My dad died in an auto accident, and several of his well-meaning neighbors approached me about putting up a roadside memorial on the site. I politely asked them not to. (I suggested as an alternative that if they wished to memorialize my father, the best way would be by planting a tree since he was an outdoorsman.)
The last thing I would want is to be reminded of my father’s death every time I pass the intersection in question. I would much rather remember the way he lived.
I didn’t recall this earlier, but having read the thread, I took notice this evening when I passed one: Virginia has official roadside memorial signs. They are black-and-white coated steel, much like any other road sign, and read “Drive safely in memory of,” and the name of the dead.
Having now been reminded, I recall several other such official memorials in my area, though they are certainly outnumbered by unofficial ones.
Apparently the idea is that the official signs are less “distracting” to drivers than elaborate unofficial memorials with big crosses, statues, flowers, flags, teddy bears, whatever. (It’s easy to ignore official road signs?) See this article, for example (though it’s about a site in Maryland).
The article does suggest that it’s a rising trend nationwide.
I’m of 2 minds…on the one hand the roadside is public property and no one really has the right to put anything there. But if it reminds people to drive safely, I guess I wouldn’t argue over it.
The memorials on vehicles are inappropriate. Your memory of someone is your own…why do you think you need to broadcast it to a bunch of strangers who never knew the person?
I’ve never seen a road-side memorial, you know with pictures and flowers, but crosses don’t strike me odd at all. Route 101 in NH has been lined with white crosses at the sites of accidents all my life. It does strike some *other people *as strange, though, given it was mentioned as being eerie in a book about Pam Smart’s trial.
Actually, the first time I ever heard of any kind of roadside memorial/warning to drive carefully was back in the 60s, reading in Ripley’s Believe It or Not! that in Yugoslavia, it was customary to mount the steering wheels of the actual cars involved on a signpost, with a small sign with the names of hte deceased and the date of the accident.
I first started seeing roadside memorials in northern Minnesota back around 1986 or so. Over time they have spread to Northwestern Ontario and other areas I’ve been.
I can understand the need to create a memorial to a loved one, but it seems to me that the place to do that is at the cemetary. The reason? Some of these roadside memorials are so elaborate, they are downright distracting to drivers. There was one in our neighbourhood, where a woman jogger got hit by a car, and depending on the time of year it got more and more elaborate – as it was at an intersection on the Trans-Canada Highway, you could see drivers looking at it when they should have been watching the lights and either holding up traffic or almost causing a new accident by the way they pulled onto the Highway.
.
I’ve never thought much about them, but a co-worker lost her son, and another her nephew, during the same crash <near work>. It happened almost a decade ago, but there’s a yearly benefit in both their names that goes on, as well as the wreaths and memorials for them on the spot. So, now I associate faces with the memorials…still not sure it helps much. It pretty much just distracts me while I’m driving, which really is not a good thing. >.<
I think whatever it takes to get the ones left behind through it is fine with me. We have them every few blocks here so maybe I’m used to them but I don’t find them any more distracting than signs, shops or people standing on the side of the road.
They’re sad, but a good reminder to watch your speed. I wish people heeded the warnings more often though.
I can’t find the cite but I read in a newspaper article a few months ago about a grandmother being killed while crossing the road to put flowers on the roadside memorial for her grandchild that had been killed there earlier. I think it was in North Carolina.
Also, there have been many studies of the phenomenon. Here’s one in Texas.
I was just thinking about these this morning, when I drove past a white cross that had a particularly pretty wreath on it. It marks the place where a young woman was killed by a drunk driver about a year ago. Anyway, I was thinking that, at least around here, you only ever see crosses. Has anyone ever seen a different religious symbol used? I was picturing my father getting his jigsaw out to cut out a UU chalice if I was in an accident, or someone having to get a few extra pieces of board to make a Star of David. Does everyone else just get a little square sign?
Most of the ones I always see around here are for soldiers that died in Iraq or Afghanistan. I certainly have no problem with broadcasting to everyone that their son/daughter sacrificed their lives for their country.
I’ve seen some of them up close. Creepy. They’re not maintained, so the stuffed animals and trinkets, and sometimes photographs, are rotting and decaying. It’s like someone cared enough to put up something in their memory, then said “fuck 'em”.
they are often at difficult locations like low sighted intersections, curves. they keep on giving too when drivers in these difficult situations are distracted, especially with nonlocal drivers who don’t expect the difficulty and they have more accidents.