Rant: Roadside Memorials? Tribute Or Distraction?

By Bud Wilkinson

Not unlike dandelions in a manicured lawn, they pop up unexpectedly. One moment there’s little-noticed guard rail alongside the highway and the next there’s a floral display that pulls your eyes from the road ahead. Roadside memorials, colorful tributes to people killed when traveling, have seemingly become more common in recent years. Are they really necessary?

What got me thinking about them was a story Friday in the “Swindon Advertiser,” a newspaper in the U.K., that told of the frustration felt by family members because the flowers that they left at a roadside crash spot kept getting swiped.

Andy Cole, 44, worked for Honda and was on his way home from work last July 5. He was riding a Suzuki GSX-R when he collided with a van and died.

Two weeks ago, his widow placed a dozen red roses at the scene, and they disappeared the following day. This past week, his parents tied some chrysanthemums to a lamppost at the scene of the tragedy and they too were gone within 24 hours.

“It is just so upsetting. It is the place where he took his last breath so we want to leave flowers there for him,” his mother, Joy Cole, told the newspaper. “I don’t know who is taking them but we are so upset.”

While their feelings are understandable, aren’t such bouquets little more than glorified litter that quickly turn into eyesores? Aren’t they potentially dangerous because they divert operators’ attention?

Is the immediate reaction if a person dies in his (or her) sleep to put a wreath on the bed? Of course not. Florists may love such displays, but the placing of flowers, photos, messages and whatnot at the scene of a fatal accident is a worthless, irritating gesture.

Before my parents died, they each requested to be cremated and their remains spread in the wood across a brook behind the house that I grew up in and where I still live. Mom had planted daffodil bulbs there and they said they wanted their ashes spread there so they “could bloom every spring.”

The daffodils are now blooming, providing me a remembrance that’s both appropriate and private, unlike roadside memorials which are obnoxious and potentially dangerous.