To feel uncomfortable with the increase in roadside memorials?

[BLEEPyouYOUbleepingBLEEP]

Just come back from hols in Greece, and it's made me realise just how polite and good the roads and drivers are here...no...really!!

The drivers are maniacs there, the roads are crap and there are tons of mopeds weaving in and out with the drivers with no helmets on.

At the sides of almost every road are tons and tons of roadside memorials and I personally felt really uncomfortable with them.

I understand why the family of someone killed on the road would want to commemorate their loved one, and warn others of the dangers (which it obviously doesn't do in Greece cos they're still driving like idiots) but how many memorials are too many?

In the UK flowers placed at the scene just after the event seem respectful, but is this OK if it turns into a shrine? Or if people start putting up ghost bikes?

I agree with blushes

That is a freaky story about the chicken VTmum, I just had to look it up Not a funny subject, but I had to laugh at the quote from the police for people to "stop grieving, it's only a chicken"!!

Deaths on our roads (in the UK) aren't increasing, they've decreased massively because of increased use of seatbelts, safer cars, airbags and less drink driving (it still happens of course but with much less more stigma than in the past).

I do feel roadside memorials can be mawkish and in general there is a big increase in that kind of thing. But if it helps people, I can't really object to it and in a way maybe it sayd something good about UK culture, that people feel more able to be emotionally open and public than they used to. Many people who suffered a bereavement 30 or 40 years ago say no one talked about it or it was brushed under the carpet - that's much less likely now, people know that airing their feelings and making memorials helps.

I was once in Costa Rica where there were loads of them. It did strike me as daft that they were everywhere and the roads were obviously very unsafe, and people would cross themselves ernestly when they saw one - yet they still drove like total loons and the suggestion that you might put on your seatbelt or drive carefully had them laughing their heads off.

Personally I don't think that public grieving in the form of heaps of flowers etc should really be encouraged. I read an article about the amount of shrines, plaques etc going up in natural spots too and many people do find it an intrusion - for instance, at a popular spot halfway up a mountain when there's a plaque saying 'xx used to love it here' etc.

Leave nature natural.

Can I just ask, what is a ghost bike? I've never heard of this.

Ghost bikes are white-painted bikes fixed to the site where a cyclist has been killed.

Although they give me the heebie-jeebies, I think I mind them less than dead, tatty flowers. I'm not a fan of any public expression of grief; family and friends are for confiding in, and I don't think it's anybody else's business. I also don't think it's right to make anyone else feel uncomfortable by displaying your grief, any more than it's ok to take out your anger on say, a shop assistant if you've had a bad day.

I dread having to explain ghost bikes to DD - so far, she's just said "that's a silly place to park a bike" and I've agreed.

Wow - I see what you mean. I agree that grief is a private thing. Not because it's shameful or should be swept under the carpet, but because you should share it with people close to you, not strangers.

I remember when the awful events of Dunblane happened, and a friend of mine drove there in her car with her workmates. I was like 'why are you going there' and she said 'we just felt we should be there'.

I dunno, I suppose it may seem a caring thing to do but is it really helping people's grieving process to have strangers drive to their towns to 'be there' ie, well, to gawp, one can't help but think.

People die all the time, every day. We're all going to die. I don't want a plaque or a memorial, I want my loved ones to treasure my memory.

With something like Dunblane, I can imagine that people are drawn to the place because they want to take away some of the pain the people are feeling there, as in sharing in their grief and showing support.

But like you say MZ, people die all the time, and some might find it hard to cope with a day to day reminder that doing a normal thing like going in the car is dangerous, you have to ignore that it's dangerous to an extent or why bother getting out of bed?

I don't think these roadside floweres are a bad idea for at least one reason. Travelling on the A17 - a road I had been warned was treachourous for accidents - its narrow, bendy, very very busy and people overtake with reckless abandon - the warnings went right over my head. UNTIL I saw roadside flowers after flowers, horrifyingly many of them....THEN I slowed down and drove much more defensively.

I simply don't understand why a bunch of dead flowers, blackened with pollution and tied to a lamppost on a god forsaken stretch of road is an appropriate way to remember and grieve for a loved one.
It seems so focus only on their death and fails to celebrate their life.

The worst roadside memorial I've seen is on the A13 - a big heap of dead flowers alongside a child's car seat, just too horrible for words.

This site may be helpful in understanding why some people feel the need to commemorate the sudden and often violent death of a loved one in a road collision.

in certain parts of france Ive seen black plywood cut outs put up on accident spots - the are put up by some official body and represent each of the deceased at an accident scene eg adult, child shapes

I think they probably do focus the mind probably more than a shrine: just on the reality of the accident and those anonymous figures represented by the road could be anyone. There cant really be any slanting of the argument and sneering about taste, sentiment or teddies with such a stark blank reminder, but of course they dont say anything personal to the grieving relatives.(not like a shrine, which says lots about the living who maintain something for their relative, but probably tells very little to the motorist passing by unless they know the story of the accident already)

• just a thought... sits, drums fingers and waits for someone to come on and critisise french drivers (btw I am not french, dont worry)

I understand that they can look tatty. I have sympathy for people who live right next to a site of an accident.

But if they are important to the family of lost loved ones then let them stay. In the scheme of things they are a small annoyance to the public but can be so important to grieving relatives.

They do tend to dwindle after a pretty short time and only the closest family members will continue to leave flowers and gifts.

We do seemingly odd and mawkish things when we lose our kids. I find myself attaching importance to things I would have previously scoffed at. Things like flowers, plaques, angel statues and ballons take on a new status (not quite the right word sorry).

We are so very desperate that everyone should realise the magnitude of what has been lost I suppose.

I dislike hysterical, bandwaggon grieving from people who hardly knew the deceased and I have seen it happen a few times, particuarly when a young person is involved. But those liggers trail away very quickly. Let mum and dad, siblings and good friends leave their flowers where they need to.

Whilst I wouldn't dream of dictating how anyone should deal with the death of a loved one I know that these memorials can cause upset for other people.

About 8 or 9 years ago there was an accident at the top of our road that resulted in the death of two motorcyclists. I didn't see the accident but neighbours at that end of the road did and were involved in the initial, albiet futile, efforts to provide first and to motorcyclists and support to the devestated driver of the car who'd hit them.

Now these people were very traumatised by what they saw (it was not a pretty sight by all accounts) yet the family of one of the men leave flowers, poems and letters to him on the anniversary of the accident, his birthday, Christmas, Easter and fathers day.

For those who were involved in the immediate aftermath it is a constant reminder of what they saw and the futility of their attempts to help. So the family feel that are doing 'something' for their loved one by spending a little time at the site whilst those who were there get to be reminded by the sight of dying flowers and scrappy bits of paper hanging from the lampost outside their homes.

I don't know what the answer is without hurting the family but surely there is a time to acknowledge that he is not 'there' and perhaps create a more fitting memorial?

I don't have a problem with the flowers as such although it isn't something I have done or would do, but what I can't understand is the leaving them there in cellophane. If just the flowers were there they would eventually just wither away, but it is no tribute to anyone to have dirty, ripped cellophane tied to lamposts and as others have said it does prove distracting when passing.

The last point is interesting and I have great sympathy for them, although the grieving relatives can't be expected to be thinking about what it does to other people in the area even if they even knew what those people did for the deceased.

There will always be differences of opinion on this as people express grief in different ways. When we were in California last year one road we drove on had so many white crosses on it I lost count. Don't know if they were put there by relatives or some official body, they all looked the same.

I never fully understood why people left flowers at the roadside where a loved one had died untill a few weeks ago.
My db was killed in an accident and my parents db and i went and left flowers at the scene. We put them on the side of the road next to a hedge rather than on the path so it wasnt in peoples way and they wouldnt be moved. Its a tribute to him! We dont mind if noone else has left flowers there what is important it that ours are where he was killed.

Lots of post by the time i'd posted that. We wanted to know db was stuck there. Due to circumstances surrounding his death we had no idea when we would be able to have his funeral. That has now been done and appropraite flowers adorned the coffin and left at the crem.

So sorry to hear about your db, shellylou.

Thanks clam. I just wanted to give an opinion of someone whos done it

The memorials in Greece can also represent an accident where someone was not killed - its like a thank you to God for saving them. The ones with photos and flowers though do represent a death.

The Greeks drive the same way that that they live their lives, recklessly. There is some built in gene that we seem to have that makes us think that we are immortal. I know people that have lost people in accidents but still do not think that it will ever happen to them.

Things are changing though for the better. With each generation we become more aware.

And yes grieving in Greece is a lot more public than in the UK, but lets be fair - grieving in most countries and cultures is more public than the UK.

shellylou Sorry about your DB. I think it would be my instinct to do that too ..

I dont like to see them because I dont want to think of other peoples pain...who does?

but its not something I thought about doing at all, wouldn't want to

It's so personal, I really do not think that anyone should comment on how someone else copes with the grief of losing a loved one.

I only found this out last week (on a speed awareness course ), but apparently where 'SLOW' is written on the road there had been a fatal accident - up until a few years ago, when speed cameras were installed instead. So wherever you see SLOW someone has died. Rather makes you think.

I think its a very personal decision to leave them. That should only be made by those closest to the deceased rather than a passing acquaintance or someone who has read it in the paper. It also depends on whether you're comfortable with other people reading any cards you have left or the possibility of them being published in the local paper. I wouldnt condone either decision that was made. I havent been back to the scene since the day we laid the flowers. I cant bring myself to do it.

thats nonense about the slow signs