Roadside Memorials: Driven to Distraction?
Recently I’ve been lending a sympathetic ear (as well as a bit of speech writing help for their campaign) to my friends in a sleepy Bedfordshire village where I lived for 16 years and where my son went to lower school. For many years now we/they have been lambasting the authorities to get speed limits lowered as the main road through the village is horribly narrow, yet gets thundered upon by endless HGVs and car commuters blithely ignoring the 40 mph limit and terrifying the residents.
We want a 30 mph limit to flag up the residential nature of the place, but various officials and other interested parties have brushed off the requests. “The police won’t be able to enforce the limits.” Or … “OK, there have been quite a few accidents but nobody has died there yet.” Or … “Well, it just looks like a 40 mph road, so no-one would slow down.”
All this got me thinking: what actually can slow traffic down effectively?
Speed limit signs really don’t work very well – the police quite cheerfully admit that they don’t even expect people to observe those to the letter.
Traffic humps and chicanes are a bit more effective as most car drivers don’t want to hit their heads on the roof lining going over them at more than 20 mph or so, but many large HGVs would simply flatten them.
Those nice, eco-friendly speed warning signs driven by solar panels and lighting up a gurning face at you if you’re over the limit are good fun and make me smile, but don’t always make me slow down.
And speed cameras (on the rare occasions when they’re operational) are on the way out of fashion, thank Heavens.
What does make me slow down, though, is a roadside memorial.
One glimpse of a teddy bear tied to a lamp-post or a collection of tired looking floral bouquets instantly flashes up a picture of a bereaved family, crying children, ruined futures – almost certainly related to an RTC** involving speeding. And wow, does my speed drop for some time after driving by.
Needless to say, many of our ultra-jobsworth local authorities are sniffy about them. “There is a view that placing memorials on the highway is maudlin and unhealthy,” say Surrey County Council , although they do concede that “a memorial can act as a warning to road users of the possible dangers of the location.”
Gloucester City Council, however, leaves no doubt in our minds. “If a memorial that is deemed to be permanent is erected, it may be removed by the Council … the Council will remove temporary tributes 30 days after the death of the deceased.”
Are these authorities right to take the memorials down?
“I think that is a disgrace, if families need closure and a roadside memorial will help them with the grieving process. If the police felt they were inappropriate they should at least consult with the family (if known) to discuss it,” says courier and light haulage boss Kevin Arrow, who – along with his team of drivers – spends a lot of time on the roads.
Ah, but some local authorities and police say the memorials are a distraction. “How can a memorial be a distraction?” Kevin continues. “They highlight the fact that that a piece of road can be dangerous and extra caution should be taken. This must be a good thing.”
What resources are there for RTC bereaved families? 
Apart from the roadside memorials that families create themselves, a few formalized organizations are springing up around the world to help – not in a cynical, profiteering way, but mostly as charities and nonprofits. UK-based Roadpeace, for example, offers advice, guidance and information on alternative memorial ideas like “remember me” plaques, silhouettes, benches and even whole gardens.
Another concept that really struck me as a noble idea – considering that so many RTC casualties are cyclists – was “ghost bikes.”
“A ghost bike is a bicycle set up in a place where a cyclist has been hurt or killed by a motor vehicle as a memorial and as a reminder to passing motorists to share the road,” says the Roadpeace website. “An old bicycle is stripped to its “skeleton” and painted white with a small placard attached. It is then locked to a suitable object close to the scene of the crash.”
There’s a powerful and very touching website devoted to these – Ghostbikes.org.
“The first ghost bikes were created in St. Louis, Missouri in 2003, and they have since appeared in over 100 locations throughout the world. For those who create and install the memorials, the death of a fellow bicyclist hits home,” they say on their website. “We all travel the same unsafe streets and face the same risks; it could just as easily be any one of us. Each time we say we hope to never have to do it again — but we remain committed to making these memorials as long as they are needed.”
On that basis maybe we should contemplate ghost motorbikes and wrecked cars, too. The powers-that-be may call them distractions, but they’re more likely to distract us from speeding – not from driving sensibly.
**RTC = Road Traffic Collision
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8 Responses to Roadside Memorials: Driven to Distraction?
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I have to say, Suze, that I do find roadside memorials such as flowers to be quite distracting when I drive past. I had not thought of them in terms of encouraging drivers to slow down until your post, and possibly this is a useful function they could fulfil.
However, I would prefer a memorial which is not going to die and look awful until someone decides to tidy it up/change the flowers. If something like the ghostbike would do this, then I’m all in favour. I’m not sure they wouldn’t get stolen and refurbished back into a working bike though. This is England, after all.
Ghostbikes – in the US, anyway – are usually bolted to railings or a lamp post, so it would be quite hard to steal them. Do you really think UK vandals would nick a ghostbike FFS? Yes, I suppose you’re right…..
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Twitter: SuzeStMWrites
A touching post Suze, thanks for researching and writing it up. I shed a tear or three as I read the draft.
I was in floods of tears when I went to photograph that memorial. There were even pictures of the deceased taped to the lamp post, showing him playing with his children. I know some memorials do become neglected as Morag has pointed out but this one was well preserved. That poor, poor family…
Twitter: SuzeStMWrites
I was in floods of tears when I went to photograph that memorial. There were even pictures of the deceased taped to the lamp post, showing him playing with his children. I know some memorials do become neglected as Morag has pointed out but this one was well preserved. That poor, poor family…
Twitter: SuzeStMWrites
Though provoking Suze, in many ways i am not surprised that Surrey County council reacted like that.We must pay the highest council tax in the land but try getting a service out of them concerning road safety! Memorials are of course necessary to concentrate people’s minds of the dangers of speeding
Though provoking Suze, in many ways i am not surprised that Surrey County council reacted like that.We must pay the highest council tax in the land but try getting a service out of them concerning road safety! Memorials are of course necessary to concentrate people’s minds of the dangers of speeding
The French have an effective alternative. One one road leading into the Dordogne notorious for fatalities, there are signs noting the number of deaths since a particular date and a black silhouette of a man, woman or child at the location of each one.
It certainly made me think but appeared to have less impact on some manic overtaking Fench drivers.