Deep sigh... Roadside 'Tributes'

[LyingWitchInTheWardrobe2726]

Am I very unreasonable to hate them?

We have a road that I travel on quite often, it's locally known as 'Death Valley'. It's been the site of several fatal accidents, namely because people overtake and misjudge the traffic in the opposite direction.

Anyway... some of the lampposts are absolutely festooned with dirty and torn teddies and dead flowers and banners and goodness knows what... until mothers' day, birthday, Christmas or some other memorable day results in even more stuff being added. Some of these accidents happened five years ago or more.

This isn't common all over the UK, just in spots. I've often seen a cross on a verge, with perhaps a small wreath but nothing on the scale of 'Death Valley'.

I drove past one of the 'festooners' today, putting some garish finishing touches to a memorial picture (the size of a dartboard), with fairy lights. She was darting across the road and I think it's a matter of time before she becomes part of the tribute scene.

It goes without saying that I feel dreadfully sad for the bereaved families but WHY exactly, does the accident site have to become an impromptu display of ostentatious grief? I really hate it...

I think in some ways they are a useful road safety reminder, people who don't know the road are shown how dangerous it can be.

However I do think they should either be maintained or removed (by the people who put them there - why should the council be expected to do additional clearing up?). I used to drive past a fatal crash site every day, someone had left several bunches of flowers in plastic wrapping. No-one ever came to remove them so after a while there was just rotted sludge in plastic wrapping and then it eventually blew away, creating litter somewhere else. If you're never going to remove the tribute at least make it totally biodegradable (flowers) or permanent but not unsightly (brass plaque/tree).

Personally it's not how I'd want to be remembered but each to their own.

Yea, those who have had loved ones die in an RTA just lurve the attention

YABFU

The use of roadside tributes has become more popular as a mechanism of grief resolution as people, and especially young people, have become disconnected with the church and by extension graveyards. Most young people will not view themselves as being able to grieve for a friend in a graveyard as it is seen as either religious or a place belonging to the older generation.

According to some anthropologists, it is also a way of 'acting out' in response to a violent death - by reliving or re-enacting the scene when going to the spot as a method of connection.

There was a very interesting although really morbid programme about this on the bbc i think when i was pregnant and in my insomniac state I looked some of it up. It showed the mum of a girl who the council had taken down her memorial - her grief was palpable and her distress really hard to see as the council had decided that her allotted time for mourning the loss of her child had ended. The programme made me think very differently about these tributes.

hmm. there was a terrible crash on the A23 killing 7 people...i drove home from work that evening and there was someone by the central barrier (newly replaced) kneeling on the ground distraught with grief. (with traffic a few feet away doing the usual rush hour speed)

i think these tributs are best viewed sympathetically.

SpeedyGonzalez I was trying to find the right way to say what I want to say but you did it for me - it is incredibly self-centred to prescribe how other people grieve.

If it helps some poor parent who has lost their child to do this, then thank God. It is not up to you to say how or where they should remember their loved ones and I can't understand why you would want to or need to.

it was this one but 8 people died in the end.

YABU... but then I used to live in HK where the roadside shrines have oranges, flowers, paper stuff and incense in them. They were proper built constructions too! I think if you want a world uncontaminated by other people and the detritus of their lives you should buy a little island and live there. That way you get control.

Not everyone chooses to be buried so there isn't always a grave to place flowers on.

I agree though that a tree or some other permanent memorial would be better. Problem is you would have to get permission from the council and they wouldn't necessarily agree.

A tree, for example, would need to be maintained to avoid overhanging branches etc and I doubt the council would be prepared to do that. If it was just left to get overgrown it could be far more of a hazard than some rotting flowers.

YAdNBU. No objection to people leaving flowers, it is all the plastic and wrapping and ribbons and bows, which are never removed, look unsightly and are nothing more than littering.

My dad was killed in a car accident 19 years ago when he was 43 and I was 21. My mum was in the car with him and was badly injured but fortunately lived. Last week was the first time I drove along that stretch of road as for once I simply couldn't avoid it. I found it incredibly difficult and I wouldn't choose to do it again. I certainly wouldn't mark the spot with a tribute, I'd wipe it off the map if I could

I accept that this is my very personal view and others deal with grief in different ways. I don't like them though as they remind me of mine and my family's loss.

YANBU

I am with you totally. They are distracting and inapproriate. I am not sure why a road side death should be commemorated differently to a death in a restaurant, house or hospital.

My son Oliver would be 13 now. He died inside me, miscarried. I lost him in a grotesque scene, like something from an American horror, in the windowless bathroom of my dingy attic flat. It was senseless, it was painful and it hurts me to this day, but to commemorate his passing by creating a shrine at that horrible house would be bizarre and I wouldn't want to. I suppose I could commemorate the place of his passing as my own body, with a tattoo, but this wouldn't be the same either as the only people who would be exposed to it would be people I would chose to lift my clothes to show it to. I don't want to, but I see no harm in it if someone else did.

My stepsons best friend committed suicide, he hung himself from a tree in the woods aged 26. That tree is not where he is remembered. He is remembered on his facebook page, which is still live. He is remembered at the football matches of the team he played for and he is remembered at his grave and by his family.

My friend died in a hospice. The room he died in is in use now by other patients living with the same awful knowledge, that like my friend they are not expected to recover. They do not need to see his photgraph and favourite tipple as they get on with thier own lives.

I can not see why a road side death is so different. All of these boys/men were someones loved ones. They are all sorely missed, but thier passing is marked amoung those who loved them. In Olivers case, it was only me (violent ex).

If I lost one a loved one on the road perhaps I would suddenly feel differently, I don't think anyone can see for sure how they would feel in greif until it hits. I really do not think I would though. My partner and I are bikers, we ride motorcycles as transport and for pleasure, we have both considered and discussed the roadside phenomenon and neither of us think it's how we would like t be remembered. We both feel that campaign for greater road safety would be a better way to process the senselessness of a road death. I would not lay a shrine for him, and I very much hope he would not lay one for me.

I think in this country we deal with grief quite strangely. Well some people do. We invite people in to the grief and in a way demand something of complete strangers. And some complete strangers are totally happy with that. Look at Diana's death, Madeleine McCann - huge, huge outpourings of undignified, mawkish, very visible self-involvement.

My second cousin was killed in a car accident (he was driving, underage, racing some friends along a country road). His mother of course has her own grief and so do we. It isn't acceptable for us to not be involved in hers, though. It's normal for her to demand that we all get involved in changing the flowers at the side of the road, and woe betide if you were to refuse. My mother loves the drama of it. I say as little as possible. I don't want to dictate to her that her grief has a limit or an end - obviously it's incomprehensible to me, walk a mile in her shoes etc. I just wish it didn't make me cringe so badly.

Someone leaves flowers tied to the raiings of my local school (for an adult who died in a car accident nearby). They never clear away the dead flowers and in fact they let the cellophane fall into the school garden. This is repeated every 6 months or so. It is littering. I dislike them all.

YABU. My ex-P died in a road accident just before our daughter's first birthday. I couldn't afford a gravestone or a plaque - they are really expensive and we were student nurses.

I think it's ok for people to express grief in this way. Do you want them to go away and do something more tasteful, out of sight? I don't think it is necessarily about creating a drama, it is about expressing something at that very raw time of crazy grief when you just can't stop yourself from wanting people to know.

In our village last month a young lad on a motorbike killed himself. He was still at high school and all of the schoolkids created a huge roadside shrine of photos and teddies and flowers. The children felt the need to do it and it probably did more good in encourgaing boy racers to cut their speed than a million public service announcements.

I've spent a lot of time in Greece, Turkey and Italy where roadside shrines are commonplace so it doesn't bother me one bit. In the grand scheme of things it is really unimportant isn't it? A bit of cellophane and a dead flower? So what if it helps some people to grieve?

I can't say I'm really a huge fan of them, but to me they only serve to point out extra-dangerous sections of road and to remind me that I need to drive safely. More so than a speeding camera or those signs which say "3 fatal accidents in 3 years".

when i see the '27 casualties in 5 years' sign i just think 'sort the cocking road out then.' and am also careful

www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/07/10/2622943.htm

I like seeing them, they serve as a reminder to be carefull.

I don't mind so much the tributes on roads. However I don't like those that are placed where someone has been stabbed etc. It makes the place seem nasty and dangerous and it's unlikely you'd see this in more salubrious areas even if this sad event happened there.

I agree, they agree, they are not graves and should not be allowed.

What an appalling thread. I'm so glad all of you think you have the god given right to decide how people should be 'allowed' to grieve!

Of all the judgemental threads on mumsnet, this is the absolute worst.

Who are we to dictate how people behave when they lose a loved one?!

I think it's fine to not like roadside tributes but to express an opinion that you think it's not the right way to show their grief and they should go to the cemetery is just laughable tbh.

I find the black silhouets of people standing by the side of the road in France make me think and slow me down.

I prefer the simple white cross placed by the roads in western Aus. Simple, a reminder to other drivers, a focus (if they wish) for the family, no littering from cellophane etc.

Yanbu but especially if there is danger to other road users when the tributes are replaced.