Althouse: How many roadside memorials are enough?

September 13, 2011

How many roadside memorials are enough?

500 in one city... and the requests keep rolling in.

50 comments:

TMink said...: "Beyond a black-and-white marker, she wants motorists to see pain and lives lost."

Sounds like untreated complicated bereavement to me.

Trey; 9/13/11, 10:04 AM
Anonymous said...: I agree, TMink. Enough.

They probably cause more accidents, as people slow down to see the tacky assemblage of teddy bears and candles.; 9/13/11, 10:07 AM
Mary Beth said...: The more there are, the less they will be noticed. I don't think they make many people drive more carefully. If anything, they might distract someone who is looking at the memorial (instead of the road) and wondering what happened there.; 9/13/11, 10:09 AM
Dust Bunny Queen said...: Roadside memorials should be outlawed. They are a distraction to drivers.

The memorials are also like bunnies. They keep procreating and soon the entire country side will be littered with them.; 9/13/11, 10:17 AM
rhhardin said...: Lobbying.

It's big teddy bear.; 9/13/11, 10:17 AM
The Dude said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 9/13/11, 10:19 AM
Anonymous said...: Roadside memorials are like these candlelight vigils you see in the inner city when someone gets shot. It's more about attention seeking than producing anything meaningful. Grief, like prayer, should not be a public spectacle.; 9/13/11, 10:21 AM
gerry said...: They are sadly wierd, and I never saw them as I grew up during the 50s and 60s.; 9/13/11, 10:28 AM
Wince said...: "When there's no more room for roadside memorials, the dead will walk the earth."; 9/13/11, 10:29 AM
William said...: "500 in one city." Maybe they should sublimate their grief with improved road maintenance and traffic signs rather than roadside memorials.; 9/13/11, 10:29 AM
Chip S. said...: How many roadside memorials are enough?

Never mind that. Are they sufficiently diverse?; 9/13/11, 10:38 AM
Shanna said...: I saw one the other day in town on a twisty patch of road right past the high school. They just make me wonder what happened.

I do agree that 500 would make me want to take them down, but one or two here and there don't bother me a bit.; 9/13/11, 10:40 AM
TWM said...: I'm all for temporary memorials that come out of immediate grief, but long-term memorials should be banned. I'd say a week is enough.; 9/13/11, 10:40 AM
Shanna said...: But then, we don't state created memorials, just the homegrown crosses and teddy bear kind.; 9/13/11, 10:41 AM
SteveR said...: OK for a year then you have to clean it up. $250 deposit, no words except name and date. One teddy bear or Big Bird. Of course, no religious symbols, we 'll call that the Bloomberg clause.; 9/13/11, 10:43 AM
edutcher said...: People in some cities drive like lunatics.

Baaston, f'rinstance.

I'm guessing it depends where you are.

NE OH has only a few.

WV "shame" Word and concept resurrected after 40 years of being disparaged by Leftists now on the losing side of history as a last gasp to retain some measure of power.; 9/13/11, 10:48 AM
kimsch said...: The people who put teddy bears or other stuffed animals at these roadside memorials are just wasting them. How about you buy a new teddy bear or stuffed animal and donate it to the police department or a hospital or the school social worker in the name of the deceased? Then the teddy bear or stuffed animal can do some good for a possibly traumatized child instead of getting moldy in the rain.

wv: mepact; 9/13/11, 10:52 AM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: Althouse slams shovel ready stimulus.; 9/13/11, 10:54 AM
Anonymous said...: We should turn the entire country into one giant memorial. Every person everywhere who has ever died deserves to be remembered. Every person everywhere who has ever known anybody who died deserves to have their pain validated.; 9/13/11, 11:03 AM
I'm Full of Soup said...: Patca is way more diplomatic than me. She called them tacky - I was gonna say they are white trashy. Especially when I go to a funeral and the youths are all wearing commemorative white T-shirts. Jeez whose idea was that?; 9/13/11, 11:10 AM
LordSomber said...: Roadside memorials are bathetic.
Wouldn't loved ones rather the deceased be remembered more for how they lived than where they died?; 9/13/11, 11:23 AM
MadisonMan said...: Roadside memorial, or trash?; 9/13/11, 11:24 AM
Anonymous said...: They can have my roadside memorial when they pry it out of my cold, dead ... oh.; 9/13/11, 11:26 AM
Chuck66 said...: I've had enough of these. I think a lot of it is narracism. They need others to see their pain.; 9/13/11, 11:39 AM
DADvocate said...: That's 500 sinced 1998 for Tamapa Bay, a pretty big city. Less than 1 a week. When I was a kid, these things scared me because I thought since someone died there, I was more likely to die there. I sounds like Tamap Bay has a time limit, which makes sense to me.; 9/13/11, 11:42 AM
I'm Full of Soup said...: Chuck:

Narracism ? Is that bigotry against Narnea? Heh.; 9/13/11, 11:42 AM
Strelnikov said...: I've always found these to be no more than obnoxious wallowing in self-pity. Stupid and embarrassing both. I put the people who post and maintain them right up there with those who want to go on TV to publicly wallow there.; 9/13/11, 11:53 AM
Carol said...: I like the simple white crosses but the plastic flowers and other geegaws the mourners put on them are trés trashy.; 9/13/11, 11:55 AM
Anonymous said...: Zero.

People die every day in all kinds of places.; 9/13/11, 11:57 AM
DADvocate said...: Sure are a lot of racist comments here.; 9/13/11, 11:57 AM
Curious George said...: The correct answer is 687.; 9/13/11, 12:00 PM
Corky Boyd said...: The roadside memorials are a problem for many local governments. The hinder mowing crews and require manual trimming where the big gang mowers can't reach. And they become eyesores.

Near where I live one local government places steel signs to mark the area for the mowing crews. The signs say "Drive Safely, Don't Drive Drunk." I'm not sure whether that particular wording is used only when the fatality was a drunk driver or not. Eventually the decorations stop and after a while the county removes everything.

There are subtle ways to discourage these memorials. They are a touchy political issue. It's hard to say no to a greiving family. Subtle innuendo sometimes works better.; 9/13/11, 12:19 PM
Anonymous said...: Oh, AJ, t-shirts? Awful.; 9/13/11, 12:43 PM
lemondog said...: "How many roadside memorials are enough?"

501.; 9/13/11, 12:47 PM
The Dude said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 9/13/11, 12:49 PM
kimsch said...: Sixty - I've seen quite a few of those rear window memorials. White, Old English style letters for the name (sometimes all caps which is really difficult in Old English fonts). I have seen about half for "yoots" and half for "Dad" or "Grandpa". I don't really see any for "Mom" or "Grandma" though.; 9/13/11, 1:14 PM
Fred4Pres said...: In Montana they put little metal white crosses up along the road where people die. They are not memorials per se, they are reminders for traffic safety purposes. Sometimes you see a cluster of big crosses with several tiny crosses.

All I can tell you is there are lots of them. They are not on the federal interstates, but they are on all the state and county roads. If you are in Montana look for them. Once you realize what they are, you will be amazed how many there are.; 9/13/11, 1:40 PM
Fred4Pres said...: I am surprised some group is not suing the State of Montana in putting up little crosses, but perhaps they put up little crescents, Stars of David, pentagrams, and other religious symbols if you are not Christian. Or maybe Christians are just really bad drivers.; 9/13/11, 1:42 PM
Fred4Pres said...: Acutually it the American Legion that does the white cross program in Montana.; 9/13/11, 1:44 PM
Fred4Pres said...: I saw this one just last week!

Apparently it was not one accident. It did catch my attention.; 9/13/11, 1:47 PM
NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...: I used to live in Raleigh. Not long after the opened the 540 Outer Beltline, a car load of high school kids hit the inner retaining wall in a curve. They were doing in excess of 100MPH and, as you can guess, none survived.

Within a day or so of the Highway Patrol finisning up their investigation the teddy bear memorials began to pop up and quickly got out of hand. Then the high schoolers started having these "cry-in's", which meant that they were parked along both sides of a 6 lane freeway with a 65 MPH speed limit. It was the place to be, even if your only connection to the event was that your best friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who's going with the girl who saw Ferris pass out at 31 Flavors last night.

Luckily the county stopped it before it got too out of hand.

I have great sympathy for these folks, but those memorials are a public nuisance and should be outlawed.; 9/13/11, 3:09 PM
Fred4Pres said...: The truth is we really do not want to be reminded too much of those who died. That is part of the reason why we bury them.; 9/13/11, 3:17 PM
Shanna said...: There are subtle ways to discourage these memorials.

Aren't they essentially littering? If it bothers the city, they should take them down and throw the stuff away. Problem solved.; 9/13/11, 3:18 PM
The Dude said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 9/13/11, 3:29 PM
Alex said...: Grief, like prayer, should not be a public spectacle.

The Japanese do the grieving thing right.; 9/13/11, 5:48 PM
Anonymous said...: They should only be allowed to use approved material that dissolves to nothing in two weeks.
Here in the NY metro area these maudlin monstrosities are everywhere.

And distracting.

And they just turn into debris anyway.; 9/13/11, 5:54 PM
Cedarford said...: kimsch said...
The people who put teddy bears or other stuffed animals at these roadside memorials are just wasting them. How about you buy a new teddy bear or stuffed animal and donate it to the police department or a hospital....
************
The world will never have a teddy bear or other stuffed animal shortage as long as Chinese workers, coal tar, and a little petroleum derivatives are all you need to make them by the 100s of millions.

=================
Fred4Pres said...
The truth is we really do not want to be reminded too much of those who died. That is part of the reason why we bury them.

That and since caveman religion started we don't eat them if other protein is handy. And if we don't eat them they start to stink.; 9/13/11, 6:19 PM
Fred4Pres said...: That and since caveman religion started we don't eat them if other protein is handy. And if we don't eat them they start to stink.

That taboo started long before caveman times. Most carnivore and omnivore animals will not eat their dead unless they are very hungry. But of course, every rule like that has an exception...

But I remember driving a girlfriend home late at night and she was driving me nuts (that is a very long story). We saw a dead possum in the road and its mate standing over it. She started crying and said it must be heart broken that its mate was killed. At that point the living possum ripped a chunk out of the dead one, tilted its head back and wolfed that chunk down.

I paused after witnessing this scene and then replied: "Yeah, your right. It seems really torn up about things."

So that taboo apparently does not extend to possums. I also broke up with that girl the next day.; 9/13/11, 7:26 PM
Fred4Pres said...: I should say most mammals will not eat their own dead. Obviously reptiles and fish do not seem too upset doing so. And chickens? Chickens are canibals at heart. But the lower you go down the evolutionary chain, the more likely they will go for an easy meal.; 9/13/11, 7:28 PM
Chip Ahoy said...: Here is where Fate met Amelia Peel.

Drank too much then grabbed the wheel.

Took this curve here a little too fast.

Went for the brake but hit the gas.

So let this be a lesson for all who think
That you can do what Amelia did
And not get snuffed like a bug.; 9/13/11, 9:37 PM