WIBU?- Roadside shrines

[Arnoldthecat]

This is more of a ..would i be unreasonable....to not want a roadside shrine directly outside my house/garden gate/in close proximity..?

I would suggest that you tolerate it as if you move it, people may not take kindly to that as they may see it as disrespectful or intruding on their grief.

Several of our local shrines have been eventually replaced with a tree and a plaque, it makes me wonder if the council makes a gentle suugestion to the family video the shrine becomes too much of a hazard.

Immediately afterwards I don't mind too much (we did have flowers left opposite our house several years ago after someone was killed in a car accident), years later just no

If it’s on your property then yes you do have the right to remove, so does the council, private business owner or the police.

Not everyone chooses to lay something down. I lost a family member in an RTA and no one in our family chose to put flowers or anything at the scene. It’s a personal choice.

Some years ago my Mum paid for a memorial bench at the cemetery in memory of her parents. It had a plaque with their name on. Whenever she visited she had no chance of sitting on it to quietly reflect as it, and all the other memorial benches had been smothered in flowers, both plastic and dying, teddy bears, football shirts, solar lanterns and every other sort of tat imaginable. So other families had commandeered these benches as their own to turn into shrines for their dead relatives. We cleared the bench several times but the tat repeatedly came back, along with some less than charming messages, but thankfully the council eventually stepped in and put a stop to it. Sadly, this is often the mentality you’re up against. Their grief overrides everyone else.

Nothing wrong with buying a commemorative plaque or bench or whatever - why don't people do this instead of creating piles of what rapidly becomes stinky, decaying litter that's in everyone else's way?

I can only imagine the badly-spelt Facebook hoo-har which would kick off if anyone removed one around here. There was one erected outside a local shop after a drunk teenager crashed into the lamppost and when someone from the shop tried to remove some of the dead flowers they were physically threatened. People are still banging on about how the council have no respect because they took down the massive poppy from their building at the end of November to make way for the community Xmas decorations, I don't think they'd dare step in.

Unless you have lost a dear one in an RTA, I don't believe you have the right to comment and you definitely should not remove it.

We all have the right to our opinions. If it was on my property, I'd leave for a while, say 3-6 months, but I'd then clear it all away.

And why is is just for those lost in an RTA? I lost an aunt, she died in hospital. People would rightly object if I were to constantly place flowers to her in the room she died, and this is no different to me.

I lost my mum late last year, and her ashes have been scattered in a lovely corner of the crematorium. A place where I can go to remember her, without impacting on someone else.

The roadside shrines distract drivers, and the cellophane and plastic tat is harmful to the environment and animals. A simple plant in the area, fine, but the rest of it, no.

There's one on the commute to work. It's been there for at least 30 years. Has now reduced to a simple cross, but that's only recently. About 5 years ago, when the plastic was still there, we had a really windy night and driving to work the next day there was loads of the stuff littering the road, and yes, creating a hazard. It's also on a road with no pavement or easy way to reach the site, thereby creating another hazard of pedestrians.

*I would suck it up and regularly appreciate the free flowers! In fact I thought that was what your WIBU was going to be about!^

Good point ! Also it helps to bolster the floristry business in between milestone events such as valentines day,mothers day etc etc..

People would rightly object if I were to constantly place flowers to her in the room she died, and this is no different to me.

Quite. I’ve just sold my late father’s house. Perhaps I should have told the new owners that I’d be popping round once a week to lay flowers in the living room.

We have one round here for a young girl who was killed in a hit and run, there has been a pic of her up for years and flowers often replaced, each time I drive past, I don't feel distracted I just feel blessed I hopefully will never have to feel the need to create one

I live near a popular area for walkers. It has benches all along the route, mostly to commemorate people who have died and it's nice to read the plaque if I sit on one of them. However, in the past few months nearly every bench has been taken up with laminated photos of the deceased clipped on with those plastic things, flags, letters, candles, stones and all manner of stuff, including their clothes. It has become ridiculous. It isn't possible to sit on the benches because of this, and inevitably all the flags and plastic stuff blow away in the wind eventually. It's become really morbid, to be frank. There is a child's toy padlocked to a post too. One day it all disappeared, bar the child's toy, so perhaps the Council came along and removed it all after complaints, or perhaps someone did it in the dead of night! It has started to creep back again, with letters from the family of one deceased person left on the bench and dying bunches of flowers all over the place. I sympathise with the families, but these benches are for walkers to sit on, not public grave memorials.
There is another one next to a road near me which has a huge flag and lots of stuff left to commemorate someone who died, presumably in a road accident, but there are literally heaps of stuff, which will again eventually blow away or across the road.

There was one at a tree a young girl hung herself from at the end of my road for years. Her brother hung himself from the same tree a couple of years before. It never bothered me but made me sad every time I drove past. After about 4 years the council removed everything and cut the branch off.

The two I mentioned upthread predate Diana's death. They are discreet and don't really distract too much, and whoever places the flowers there does so regularly as they are never left to rot and always look fresh. It's not what I'd do personally as I think that's what graves and headstones are for, but who am I to judge?

When the flowers die, discreetly remove it. You could plant some bulbs on the verge which would be seemly.

I think they are really tacky, especially as they always seem to be left to fade/rot/blow away etc-I read a book once where the character who was bereaved mixed up flower seeds in soil and drove around the countryside throwing them onto verges so that beautiful wild flowers would grow-that’s a much nicer idea!

I suppose you could class me as an underclass person, and I really think they’re bloody awful. I can’t think of anything more awful. For my “dead” (as it were) I’ve made sure I followed their wishes and I visit them at their graves. I suppose I’m lucky in that none of my family or friends have died in an RTA or have suffered a violent death, but I still wouldn’t ever make a shrine at the place they died. I may visit quietly, but wouldn’t leave anything, as that’s not where they are.

Why would it not be Arnoldthecat? The memorial to Stephen Lawrence, which keeps being defaced, is a discreet slab in the pavement.

Exactly,,we are agreed. Replace roadside shrines with the option to have a square stone in the pavement with details of the deceased. These could be installed at a fixed price. If the deceased can't afford it, then they could launch a crowd funding page and all those who would have contributed to the cellotaph could contribute there.

As an extension of this, we could legislate so that everyone has to be cremated. Put the ashes under the inscribed paving slab and free up land that would have been used to bury dead people to be used to build decent homes for living people to live in.

There was one about a year ago a few streets or so from me where a motorcyclist was killed - no other vehicles involved, he was a known thief who even his family said they never knew which bike he would come home with each day! I assume uninsured etc too and I believe doing stunts and speeding when he killed himself hitting a tree. The family hung his helmet high up in the tree (no idea how they got it up there!) and a few days later I saw a local oldish gentleman up a ladder removing it, don't blame him to be honest, no need for that at all. It is not an accident prone area he was an idiot who killed himself why should a tree have a gawdy yellow helmet in it for him?!

My elderly Aunt lived on a busy main road and unfortunately she witnessed an accident where a child lost their life right outside her house. For years afterwards, people covered the lampost opposite on the anniversary and never came back to clear it away. It was a painful reminder for her every year of such a tragic incident that she had to witness and then had to contact the council to clear it away because nobody else bothered (would have filled a wheelie bin twice). I don't understand why people feel that this is necessary.

If I’m remembering correctly 2 of these displays of litter near me commemorate a young driver who killed himself and nearly crashed down an embankment onto a busy motorway whilst high on drink and drugs and two motorcyclists, whilst similarly intoxicated and having removed the speed limiter from their machine crashed into another car and killed themselves whilst showing off in front of some pub customers so just discreetly remove it at 3am. Thanks for tidying the street up. Cemeteries and burial grounds exist for memorials.

There are lots of these near me as sadly there are many deaths on the country lanes. Usually motorcyclists, but also cyclists and car drivers. Many are small, a couple are bulbs planted with a small cross, but some are huge piles of cellophane and photos etc. One in particular I think is dangerous. It’s on a road I drive daily, but it still catches my eye, taking it away from the road, just for its size and many colours. It’s at the brow of a hill, on a sharp bend on a large tree, and the tree is covered in dead flowers, scarves, teddies etc. If it distracts me when I know it’s there it must be very dangerous for anyone not knowing the road. More than one motor cyclist has died there, and at least 2 other accidents have occurred there, no more distractions are needed.
As pp have said, my df died suddenly at home, I don’t go back and put flowers there, how is it different to dying suddenly in an accident?
The one thing I did find them useful for is when my dd was starting to be driven around by friends, pointing out how dangerous the roads are and never to go in a car with anyone who drives stupidly.

Not really a big deal, unless you've some aversion to death and people mourning? Don't see the issue, I mean it's not going to be there forever, and it's not directly on your property.

I don’t understand why people need to memorialise the scene of the accident, other than performance mourning. The deceased’s remains are somewhere else.

They remind me to slow down.

My dc had a mutual good friend who crashed into a tree. He burned alive, bc he couldn't get out of the car, age 18. They found his body against the rear window.

There is memorial by the tree.

I sincerely hope that EVERY time they drive past the tree and memorial that they remember the funeral and the laughter they shared at school and the sadness as they hugged his twin.

And how very fragile life is, even to the young with lives stretching before them.