It’s easy to sympathize with grieving families who erect makeshift roadside memorials — often small crosses and flowers –to lost loved ones killed in traffic accidents and other tragedies. But in practice, such memorials raise thorny public policy questions — how long should such displays be allowed to exist? Permanently? Does allowing them on public property open the door to other kinds of displays? Are they a distraction to drivers?
City and state officials have tended to look the other way on these questions, but some commonsense rules need to be put in place. Temporary displays aren’t so much the problem; the conflict arises when permanent, private displays are erected on public land such as highway medians and roadsides.
In Cheyenne Bottoms wildlife refuge, one family has erected on state property a private memorial including solar lights, a power outlet and a footbridge.
Where to draw the line? As some states have done, a good compromise might be to issue permits allowing short-term displays, with the understanding that permanent memorials belong in private cemeteries.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
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18 Comments
You know whats worse than roadside memorials? Memorials on the back windows of peoples cars.
“In Loving Memory of _______”
Seriously, isn’t that what head stones are for? Maybe they want other drivers to be courteous to them because they lost a loved one… like that never happened to anyone but them. Maybe they want everyone in the world to share their grief, who knows.
Funny story, I was walking out of the local Superstore and saw a pickup truck with a little memorial on each of the back windows of the cab. So I walked up to the truck and peered into the bed. The woman, who was loading her groceries at the time, asked me what I was doing. I told her that I thought she had two bodies buried in her truck bed and that those memorials were head stones. She didn’t find it funny, I did.
The people who put up these memorials are hurting, and if it makes them feel better, well, the world can use a little less pain. Admitted, the one in Cheyenne Bottoms is overdoing it, but the ones I’ve seen are small and tasteful. Let ‘em be!
As long as the memorials aren’t huge and distracting or infringing on someone’s private property I don’t see what the big deal is.
I gotta go along with “Quiet” on the memorial window decals. What is up with that? Isn’t it kinda like advertising “Please ask me about my dead relative.”? Other than that I guess it is harmless. People grieve in their own ways.
As to the roadside memorials, I call those harmless too. But if the city does see them as a distraction or problem, how about encouraging folks to plant a tree on their memorial spot? A tree is a lovely memorial. It endures for years, enhances the landscape, and helps the environment.
I think it’s a little hokey but I guess it really doesn’t hurt anything. I suppose there should be a time limit for memorials on public property. My concern would be, what else are we opening the door for? Campaign signs? Diet suppliment advertisements?
Imagine the scenario..some idiot driver is distracted by a memorial and causes a wreck. An ambulance chasing “fight for your rights” attorney gets involved. Who does he sue? The people who put up the memorial? Or the city/state that allowed it to exist?
Obviously, the government has more money, so they will be the ones sued. Then, we can ALL pay for it.
A respectable time, then gone. People eventually get over the death of a loved one. That’s human nature. The state is correct on this one: Limit the time, then take it down. Mourn at the cemetary.
I’m not being callus, just realistic.
I first saw roadside memorials driving in Baja, in 1982. They represent little people expressing their sentiments. Some curves had many, which meant, this is a really dangerous section of road. I think little people should be able to say, “This is where our loved ones died,” and we passersby can think about it.
Are they any worse than commercial billboards? When the grieving forget, the memorials will disintegrate.
Having lost my dad two years ago I do think about it some. The feeling that someone that I saw as my hero and his passing means that others will never know the man I thought of as my role model and someone that was so great. Somehow the world would be a greater place for him being here.
But the world did not stop turning and outside of those who’s lives he touched. The human race could go about its way never even knowing that at one point in that turning of the world he had been here.
There is a nice stone in the cemetery in Parson with his name and some words. But otherwise unless you go there and read every stone. You have no idea he is bury there. He was seventy five at the time of his death, having lived life for the most part on his own terms and allow the world its madness.
But his death was meaningless compared to his life. The things he did in quiet passage were a marking of his living. I find I would want to make the world remember even if it would mean surpassing the cross at Immanuel church in its size. Even so, the world turns no matter what the loss or the monument that one would put up. The people of this planet even with a monument that could be seen from space still would not know the man I knew.So there is not marking of his passing except for that stone and me. To read my words, hear my view, watch my action and facial expressions. You get a idea of the man I thought of as a hero.
He died of water on the brain, his life could not be call cut too short at seventy five. his mark on this world had already been made. His death for the most part had been seen by all that knew him.
Had he died of a car accident or some unthinking action of an other. I would want those that did not know this man to at least ponder why? I think nothing is so powerful, not even that monster cross on Broadway. As those simple, small crosses on the side of the road. It give a moment to think of those that died there and how they lost their live at that place. It happened in a very public way, in a very public place. Sorry if the world wants to forget, not to be reminded that at one time, at one place there was someone who lost their live and the world lost someone that was a hero, a future, a special person that all the hopes and dreams were made of.
But I owe them that, to see that simple cross and think if just for a second out of my day. It is the smallest of price.”As long as someone remembers, no one truly dies”
writerdog, you have put tears in my eyes.
ill stick with Quite…
When i was in high school two of my class mates died. One of them died very close to his house and the spot was very accessible and off the road. (a telephone pole). We erected one of theses small, impromptu memorials. The few months after the crash and his funeral the site had a steady stream of flowers, letters, etc… His family made weekly trips to collect these and eventually the gifts and people stopped coming. Today there is a simple painted cross on the telephone pole. that’s it. Only those of us who were around then know why.
I know another memorial down the street that is huge. its taking up probably 20 feet of fence. the owner keeps taking the stuff down (he had left it up for years) and leaving one or two key things but people keep coming back.
What do we do?
My thought is keep it small, keep it safe and keep it short. For laws or ordinances to be enacted, i would say only if it can be proved that they cause accidents or enough complaints by private land owners.
This stuff is just one more symbol of our over-emotional, under-logiced society.I’ve lost count of all the people I’ve known in this city who’ve been murdered (I stopped counting at 39…that was in 1999).I’ve lost loved ones to traffic accidents.Four people I know…including a grand nephew… died on 9/11.I agree…six month time limit, buy a sign from the state.This may sound crass to some, but there just comes a point where you have to get over yourself.
Memories are in the heart, not in a gravesite or memorial along the road or the back window of a car. Those are only reminders.
They’re not something I would personally do, nor would I want one for me, but I wouldn’t stop others from doing it if it helps them through their grieving process.
I don’t mind the roadside memorials. I see them all the time and I don’t think they are destracting or an eyesore. I don’t mind people doing that and keeping them up.
I don’t however no why people do it. I thought it was a recent christian practice that has made it mainstream, but I saw one that had a Star of David, so that ruled it out. I don’t know if people think there ghost is there or it’s just a reminder.
But if it’s just a memorial to remind themselves, why is it only limited to roadsides? What about work place accidents, Hospitals, bedrooms, parking lots for those who got shot? How come there isn’t anything there? I was recently at the Broadway QT where that young man got killed and I didn’t see a memorial there.
I understand the family and friends that are grieving, but I would think that photographs, video, stories told over again about the person would be more of a memory about that person than a roadside floral arrangement. I could be wrong. I don’t know.
I’m fortunate enough not to have lost anybody close to be yet. I have never been to a funeral and I’ve never seen a dead person before. So I can’t speak on experience or what a memorial could do to help me grieve.
I say let the memorials be.
I said I wouldn’t do a memorial, but I should probably correct myself. When I was in D.C. a few years ago, I took along some small momentoes of a friend from high school, who was killed in Vietnam, and placed them at the Wall. I knew those things were gathered, bagged & tagged and kept in a warehouse.
When you look at person’s birth and death dates, remember, their life and existence is not defined by those two outer markers. It is defined by the dash in between the dates. Live your dash well!
It always reminds me to drive safely when I see the memorials, and how easy it is to lose one’s life in an instant. I think it’s a good thing. Let them be.
i lost my sister in a four car pile up ,her boyfriend was driving ,we have a roadside memorial at the spot,and yes it has stopped any more accidents from hapening ,and yes it help us to go there and cut the grass and put new flowers there for her .we donot have a grave,and we have a lot of peaple behind us to keep it going as it is even the local plice ,i dont know how peaple say you can get over a death like this ,we are 2 years on and we still cry everey day for her she was only 20,i think as long as it is keepped mantained by the family at there expence ,and not let things all die off and its not corssing any more accidents what harm is it donig ,cos peaple put floewrs out side there homes is that not a distraction