Roadside Death Memorials: I Just Don't Get It.

[JazzManJim]

There's this thing that's been happening around my way for perhaps the last couple years. I'm sure it's not new, but it's become common enough that it's really noticeable and, in my opinion, unsightly.

I guess that's not quite the right word, but I'll explain and let you decide for yourself.

The site of many fatal car accidetns have become impromptu roadside shrines to the victim. Generally it starts small, with a pretty tasteful cross alongside the road. It doesn't stop there, though. It grows into flowers, wreaths, small stuffed animals, candles, more flowers, small signs, and such. Some of these memorials have just become grotesque, with dead flowers and road-grime-stained stuffed animals just lying about, untended.

I could see where family and friends of an accident victim would want to have some sort of memorial, but I thought that the grave site was the place for that. It's gotten to the point where I can think of ten different places right off-hand within 15 minutes of me where these shrines have popped up. Some of these have lasted well over a year and a half - or at least that's how long I've noticed them there. But even understanding the feelings involved - I've suddenly lost a loved one - I can't see where a garish memorial is any real kind of tribute.

And let's not even get me started on the "In Remembrance of" decals folks have been putting on the rear windows of their cars.

Am I completely callous about this?

 

[Problem Child]

I agree. Totally tacky.

 

[freakygirl]

When my brother was killed in a roll over accident.. the gouge in the cement curb, left when the top of the cab hit it.. was enough of a "rememberance" for me.

Although it's a small mark.. I still see it every time I drive past.

I don't want to remember where it happened. I want that memory to go away.

 

[JazzManJim]

I agree. Totally tacky.

That's the perfect word for it!

I suppose perhaps I could ask a bigger question: what is it with the trend toward more and more and more public grieving?

 

[Wiggles]

I see why people feel the need for them. They are a constant reminder to people who drive by, this can happen to you.

I think the memorials should be left for the grave sight, but then again, people put up big memorials outside of places of tragedy. These sights are the places where their loved ones lost their lives.

I can't imagine someone letting them go unattended though, sort of ruins the point. Like letting your prized Schwinn rust outside in the rain.

 

[Tyrael]

The little crosses on the road side are ok to me.

I've never seen anything other than a cross on a tree.

I have never seen toys or flowers and candy placed there as well.

 

[Lasz]

Well being that a death by car accident is a tramatic event. People feel that they have to leave a memorial sometimes. People who die in car accidents, tend to die at a young age, and have deaths that are sudden. Car accident deaths are sudden, you say see you later to someone and then you find out they die on the way home. This happened to me a few years ago. In such a tramatic sitution you tend to do more things, such as set up a memorial. Especially if something such as alchol is a factor in the accident to help make a statement about drunk driving.

We tend to morn the death's of the young more so then the old. When an old person dies we dont morn so much because it is expected, look at celebrites for example, the younger ones get more media coverage on their funerals then the older ones.
T
he curb side memorials are just on off shoot of this.

laz

 

[Tyrael]

That's the perfect word for it!

I suppose perhaps I could ask a bigger question: what is it with the trend toward more and more and more public grieving?

How is it anymore public than the long parade of cars following the hearse to the gravesite? Or the obituary in the newspaper? Or the ceremony at the grave itself?

 

[JazzManJim]

How is it anymore public than the long parade of cars following the hearse to the gravesite? Or the obituary in the newspaper? Or the ceremony at the grave itself?

I suppose it's different for me because first, those parts of the grieving process are finite. The procession lasts only a short time (and is more practical than anything else). The obituary is fairly traditional and serves a purpose beyond just grieving also. The ceremony is a finite thing. It has a sure ending time and then the loved ones have somewhat a sense of "finality" to things.

I don't think it's healthy to go there week after week, adding things to a roadside shrine, having it there every time you drive by and, quite honestly, creating a huge eyesore that everyone else has to face when they drive by.

This is the part where I think I might be callous. Where it's a sad event that someone has died, I don't want to have it constantly in front of my face every time I hit one of these roads.

 

[Tyrael]

Well some people have a hard time letting the memory of a lost loved one go.

I'm pretty indifferent to it. I can't say what I'd do if I found out my sister was killed in a car crash.

 

[Debbie]

I see why people feel the need for them. They are a constant reminder to people who drive by, this can happen to you.

I agree with Wiggles.

Here in New Zealand you see on the roadside small white crosses. Some have flowers on them from their friends and loved ones. Some are unadorned.

Each time I pass these small white crosses I am reminded
of how dangerous are roads are, how easy it is to be distracted,
how too many people drink and drive, speed, how easily accidents can happen.

I don't know how I would react if I lost a friend or loved one
in a car accident/ riding a bike or however they died.
Would I erect a small memorial to them? I don't know.
I hope I am lucky enough to never find out.
Do I think you are callous? No. Not at all.
Each to their own.

I respect and am saddened by these small reminders.

Lest we forget. A reminder that life can be tragic and short.

 

[phrodeau]

In the Midwest, there are areas that display a sign that says, "X Marks the Spot", with a prominent X (not a cross-shape). I assume they mark locations of fatalities, and I know a sharp bend in a hilly area that sports about 8 signs in a cluster. If anything, they serve to indicate the need for caution.

 

[Siren]

Well, as someone who lost a brother to a hit and run murderer as well as

 

[Guest]

 

[SexyChele]

I've never given roadside memorials much thought before now. I understand them to be a way for the public to show family members that they are grieving their loss as well.

Just this past December - the day after Christmas, in fact - a young boy was killed in a busy crosswalk. I saw the aftermath, including his shrouded body on the road when I was going home from work. There has been a roadside memorial since then. However, the candles and flowers are changed regularly and don't stay for long - but they are replaced. I have no idea who is doing it. But I do know that, even though I did not know the boy or his family, every day when I drive by there I know that there was once an 11 year old boy who lived on this earth whose life was extinguished abruptly, and that somewhere a family still mourns their loss. By looking at that memorial, and remembering that, I remember him.

As to the question of age being a factor. Well, in my hometown we had a very bad car accident in which a woman who was over 100 was killed. (no, she was not driving) Some one (the family?) put up a simple white cross where the car ended up on an embankment. There was nothing else, just a simple white cross. But everytime I drove by there, I remembered there once lived a woman who lived to be 101 who died going to get her hair done. It sounds stupid in many ways - I never even knew her - but I know she lived, and I know how she died. The city left the cross up for over a year before it was taken down.

I guess sometimes they can look "tacky". But I really think there are good intentions behind them, and I think the family ultimately knows that. And if it helps the family during the initial grieving process, than can it truly be a "bad" thing?

I think I was more irritated at all the sudden "memorials" that sprang up in the aftermath of 9/11. I could see if people had known some one who was killed, but I think a lot of that was just show. Still, I would not begrudge anyone their period of mourning a loss.

 

[Lost Cause]

You aren't strange, I have seen this pathetic display of the "victim society". They use to put crosses (which predate christian symbols of death) on bad turns or stretches of roads that were dangerous. Now a person is run over at an intersection and a day later there's a pile of flowers in the way.
It's a useless, psychotic, actioned on the part of any grieving relatives. The body isn't there, the soul isn't there, so what good is anyone doing? It is more effective to give the money they spend on the memorial to the family, or a group dedicated to changing the conditions that led to the death.
We've had several cops killed over here under various situations. Being an ex military cop, I donated to the memorial fund that helps the dependents of the officers. Flowers, wreaths, and sentiment is great....at the service!
It is a symbol of our misdirected concerns of what is important, and what is not.

 

[zantac666]

Here in washington state if you pay for it the state will put a sigh up saying in memorie of who ever.

My best friend he was more like a brother to me we liked a lot of the same things he died in a car crash due to a drunk teen.

 

[sch00lteacher]

If they really bother you, stay outta the South. They are all over the place.

I think they bother us, yes I get creeped out, because they remind us that we are mortal. That it can all go away real quick.

Like others here I had a brother killed in an accident, all his fault. I avoided that intersection for years and years. Then I got a job that required me to use it. I felt like it was haunted or something. I felt no need to leave anything. But now I wonder, if I had, would that haunted feeling have gone away?

Siren, I don't think the Jazzman was feeling callous. I'd bet that it was more along the lines of my post, feeling mortal. That is a bad feeling for humans. Then as usual I could be wrong, I'll let him handle it himself. Love ya Siren.

 

[Weird Harold]

Generally it starts small, with a pretty tasteful cross alongside the road. It doesn't stop there, though. It grows into flowers, wreaths, small stuffed animals, candles, more flowers, small signs, and such. Some of these memorials have just become grotesque, with dead flowers and road-grime-stained stuffed animals just lying about, untended.

I don't have any problem with marking the spots along the highway where fatalities occured. The markers serve as warnings to drivers of dangerous sections of road.

I do think it's sad, and a bit tacky when they turn into shrines that aren't kept up. The grungy little piles of rotting flowers and stuffed animals seem to say, "We've gotten over our grief, so we can forget now," to me.

Siren said, "grief is NEVER finite," and I have to agree with that sentiment. However, unkempt piles of rotting offerings alongside public thoroughfares send just the opposite message.

 

[MissTaken]

Thank you, Siren!

Grief is NOT finite. It is NOT a process. There are several components to grieving i.e. denial, anger. sadness. acceptance that surface at different times.

People deal with grief in a very individualized manner.

I, too, thought to myself the other day that there seem to be more roadside memorials.

Question: Is it indicative of more "tacky" displays , as you call them?

Or is indicative or more car accidents in the area?

It is the latter in my county.

No, I don't have a problem with the crosses and in fact, there is one about five miles from my home that serves me well to remember the loss of my dear friend's wife. It reminds me that alhthough it happened several years ago, this "event" took place, he feels pain and I can be a better friend to him.

Just my social worky two cents worth.

 

[bored1]

Your not callous at all............I dont remember this type of display from my youth, seems to be a new phenomon.....Around here there are crosses along the freeway all seem to be unattended....I do believe LC is correct in that its part of the victim society in which we live.....I tend to keep my feelings about such losses to myself..Seems to me in todays world everything has to be an event.The more flowers the more stuffed animals the more were percieved to care.........

 

[impulse]

These memorials serve the dual purpose of warning drivers (including our children) and as expressions of anguish by loved ones. I do feel that as elements of the displays deteriorate, they should be tidied up.
Lat year, as I was passing one about eight miles from my house (which has been there for almost two years now), I observed a woman kneeling in front of the display, crying. This made my eyes water, and I am not usually that mushy. My point is, these memorials may serve a purpose for some that I would not ever condemn or interfere with. I only know that I have not been in that position.

 

[Problem Child]

I think mourning is a private thing, and there's no reason to put up a display for the motoring public to be alerted that your loved one died at a particular spot. If one of my a family members died at a particular spot I would have no problem remembering where it was...it would be burned into my brain and I think, like Freaky, I would want to forget it.

As for these little shrines being warnings about bad sections of road, that's silly. If people want to warn people about bad roads they should write or call the agency responsible for maintaining the road, or their governmnet representative and tell them to put up better roadsigns or change the road to make it safer. Roadside memorials aren't the way to make roads safer...in fact I think they make them more dangerous because people are distracted from driving by looking at them.

 

[Dhalgren]

Here in Lovely Los Angeles…it’s usually regarding a child shot outside of their house while they happened to be playing.

I think Parents and family members have the right to do whatever it takes to find solace in their hearts.. however they may find it.

Of course, it's not usually in the road, here..but on the sidewalks.

 

[Siren]

My telling Jazman that he was callous is in direct response to his asking if he was