When I moved to Arizona about 20 years ago, I noticed that people would mark an area alongside the road or highway with a white cross where a fatal auto accident had taken place. But over the years this practice has evolved into quite elaborate mini shrines along the roadside. Including trees, statues, benchs, solar lights, you name it. I understand the sentiment but it's getting a little creepy seeing these everywhere.

Is this a custom in your area? If so, what do you thinK?

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here its usually a homemade cross and flowers

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"Never loan your car to someone you have given birth too"

I have only seen a cross and flowers here. Sometimes a lot of flowers!

I don't get the idea of doing this. Seems a bit creepy to me too.

Don't they have a cemetary lot??

They sometimes do that here however not to the extent you describe it. Here the most I have seen is a wreath over the cross and maybe a teddy bear and flowers.

I thought the crosses initailly were started by Mothers Against Drunk Drivers many years ago to mark when someone was killed by a drunk driver.

Joyx3 - For some reason I thought the same thing, that they were put there when a death occured becasue of a drunk driver. I'm not sure were I got that from though.

Mainly around here it's just a cross.

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They do here, kinda simple
It is a little creepy, But It does make me think of someones life that was lost for a bit
Suzanne

They have shrines here, probably because it's mostly kids who seem to get killed in automobile accidents ( maybe it's like that everywhere?). Every holiday new items are left and then finally the things stop showing up.

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Mostly crosses and flowers. Most crosses aer homemade but a lot of them have good workmanship. A lot of the crosses have names and dates on them.

I don't find them to be spooky but it does get my attention to the fact that due to someone's driving errors there were lives lost.
Sad

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They do it in Montana. The state puts up white crosses along the roads/highways were people died in car wrecks. I think it's a bit morbid too but does make you aware. One place up by Glacier has 6 crosses together by a bridge. THAT creeped me out.

And there is one road where there are more crosses than miles in the stretch. (Road from Bozeman to Big Sky)

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We also have a few crosses here and there. From personal experience I think they can be distracting. My son had just turned 17 and was driving on the freeway. There was a lot of traffic and everyone was only going 10 or 15 mph. He sees a cross on the side of the road and reads the name. I'm sure you can guess what happened. The cars in front of him stop and when he looks forward he can't stop in time and hits the car in front of him. It was a minor accident because they were going so slow but he still ended up totaling my car because both air bags deployed and just replacing the air bags was almost $2,000 each. My car was an older car but only had 50,000 miles on it. I know a more experienced driver would not have looked so long, but a new driver might. We were very lucky that he was going so slow when it happened. I almost think that if someone wants to put up a memorial that is going to stay for a long time it sould be flat on the ground. Then the parent would know that it is there, but it would not distract other drivers.

We have them in Maryland too. They are not just on the highways. They are along the streets too for people who get hit by cars while crossing the street. Since we have people from all over the world I thought it was more of a cultural thing.

I have seen them here and everywhere that I have lived. I never thought of them as creepy. I always just thought about the life that was lost and that the people left behind were doing something that possibly made them feel just a small bit better.

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They were getting so rampant here that they started putting up "Drive Safely" markers and at the bottom it says "in memory of Joe Smih" or something like that at the crash site. They don't allow the shrines, but sometimes families still try to put stuff on or around the signs.

Yes, I see them too.
What I most recall was about two years ago, there was an accident at a certain intersection. A few young high school kids died. They had a vigil at the corner and erected huge poster boards, pictures, balloons, flowers, notes, candles. It stayed up there for a really long time (over a year).

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They do it here too..and they don't forget about them either...most for years will have small stuffed animals etc. Everytime I pass one I realize how dangerous that road CAN be, a fault you can get into easily traveling the same roads for years. They are not just for people killed by drunk drivers here, but any fatal accident. One dead mans curve here has over 9 crosses.

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I don't understand why anyone would think it was morbid or creepy.

I do see these in my area. However, the next town over has outlawed them. Too distracting.

They have them here - but the county takes them down when the mowers come. But they are usually put back up.

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Yep, they have them here. There was a recent discussion about not allowing them because they were distracting and yes, creepy. Thoughts against them were that cemeteries were such things belong. It didn't win/pass but I actually see less of them now for some reason.

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Here, in Ca., they also have the crosses usually with flowers or a picture. We have the shrines but they do not last long. I think highway patrol takes down the shrines after a certain amount of time.

They do it here as well, normally right next to the sign "1 killed DUI " which is a state marker that is placed where the accident occurred. I had never seen a state marker until we moved here.

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I live in the city so we don't have many spots marked (I can think of 3). What bothers me is one spot had 2 people die in the same accident and I swear the families are having a war over the most decorated phone pole.

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We have them here in Central Texas, and it always makes me sad, when I dozens of them all in one spot........Areas that should have actual stop lights instead of blinking lights.......

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Oh yeah. There is one in particular that I drive by daily. A young girl died there in a car wreck. It has quite an elaborate array of crosses and things there. I can understand the family wanting to acknowledge that spot, and as odd as it is, it's a rememberance of a loved one, sort of acknowledging that they were "here", and they existed. Often times when a person passes away people stop speaking of them/acknowledging them, as if they never existed. I think this is a way for the families to validate that the person did indeed exist.

The only time it bothers me is when I see a LOT of them.....like on this one road we drive down when travelling out of town, there is cross after cross after cross.......... and it's a long country road, so it kind of weirds me out a bit.

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Here north of Atlanta in the burbs, you don't see many of them unless there has been a major accident...There was a cross, flowers, teddy bears, etc. at an intersection where a teenage driver was killed a few years ago...It always made me sad to see it whenever I drove by and after about a year it was taken down...I do see tons of them though when we go down to Panama City Beach and go through Alabama...I forget the name of the road, but my kids call it Devil Road...When they were small it used to scare them...It gets very dark along there at night...Now they are widening the road, but not sure how long it's going to take...You would see white cross after white cross...The saddest ones I saw were two large ones and one tiny one...assuming that two adults and a child died there...Does anyone from AL (Eufaula, Dothan) know what I'm talking about? I've always wondered who put them there...It doesn't really creep me out, just makes me think about how many people get killed behind the wheel... ~Lisa

What about cars that have 'In Memory of...' and then a name, DOB and DOD on back of window? I've been seeing a lot of those too.

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Maybe creepy wasn't the right word for me to use.

I guess I just can't understand why anyone would place things along a highway?
The body or ashes are somewhere else.
If someone was killed somewhere other than a highway you don't see anything there?

Yes, they do this here. There is one particularly treacherous and long stretch of road that has many, many white crosses and sometimes mini-shrines along it.

What bothers me the most are the memorials that have gone bad.....dead flowers, browned wreaths, etc....those make me feel sad for the deceased as if they are no longer remembered...

cj/

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This is pretty much nationwide. Unless you have been in that family's position, it's not as easy to understand the why. It could be a reminder of young lives lost due to bad decisions whether it be speeding, alcohol, carelessness, etc. It could be a reminder of lives lost due to someone else's actions. It seems to be a way of trying to connect to their loved one in their last moments. When you see a roadside memorial, the family had little (possibly at the er) or no chance (death at the scene) to say goodbye.

Think why people go to the World Trade Center or Oklahoma City sites. A sense of something so precious snatched from them so quickly and wanting to have a small connection. Some states are requiring the use of uniform, small markers but people will always do as their heart leads them in a loss.

dl

There is a stretch of road between Flagstaff and Lake Powell (Page), AZ where a local resident has placed simple white PVC crosses everywhere for each person involved in an accident with a fatality.

One spot has 8 crosses; two separate fatalities within weeks of each other. We drove that stretch a few years ago and counted close to 200 crosses. It is about 120 miles -- give or take.

This road is traveled by a lot of tourists on their way to the Grand Canyon/Lake Powell. The two-lane highway runs through the Navajo Indian reservation.

So sad.

For that area, it is a reminder for drivers to pay attention and slow down!

Here's a good article about this stretch of highway if anyone is interested in reading it:
Phoenix - News - Rebel Out With a Cross

There is one here for a little boy, he was I think 3 when he died, and they have a picture of him, too. He was such a cutie, makes me smile to see it, then I get a little sad, because he was born a few days after my DD.

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They go up here too, but they come down rather quickly as I think it's illegal in this state. I may be wrong, but I seem to remember this being a hot topic of debate a few years back. I also think they are very distracting to most drivers, as most people do take their eyes off the road to look at stuff like that. I also feel billboards, etc. are distracting too, and other things of that nature. If the memorial is along a busy highway or street, people stopping on the side of the road to put them out or to maintain them is dangerous also. I do understand why the family or friends do it, maybe there is another way to go about it though, don't know. I have lost several family members and friends in automobile accidents and I know it is difficult (or impossible) for family/friends to drive by that particular site where the death occurred. I'm sure the memorial just helps them to be at peace with it all.

Maybe to mark the spot as a way of saying "be careful...there was a fatal accident here"...as a warning to drivers to slow down...It does make you think when you see the crosses...A visual that teens especially will notice... ~Lisa

I agree, maybe creepy wasn't the right word but let me explain. My drive to work is 25 miles through a valley and down a mountain at a 6% grade. This road when I moved here was two lane and treacherous with the obligitory "dead man's curve". The road over the years has been improved and realigned into a divided 4 lane highway.
During my 30 minute commute, there are at least 2 dozen makers. About 5 of these are shrines. One has a tree, bench, a couple statues,banners, a sign, rock work, solar lights and is decorated according to the season.
I never had a problem with the simple crosses with a name and/or date with maybe some flowers laid near but at what point is it a rememberance or just an over the top display?

I don't want to sound uncaring but I really don't get it.

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There was a young boy that was killed a few months ago on hwy 98 here in Navarre and it's so sad, they have a pumkin out there as well...

Just a few weeks ago my brothers best friend had too much to drink and did not want to drive and started walking home and was hit not once but four times...I have mixed feelings. It's hard enough to drive by there every day...not sure if we could take a shrine...

It is so hard to lose a loved one and I would not like to drive by see all this "stuff " there at the spot where the tragedy occured. Too sad a reminder of the accident .
I would like to remember the good memories of my loved ones.

This is just my feelings and I hope that it makes others feel better.

I see these here, but I know there are pretty strict rules about what you can or cannot do, and how long they will allow anything to remain up.

It breaks my heart every single time I pass one. I just say a Hail Mary, which I think comes from the old Catholic school training of saying a Hail Mary everytime an ambulance went by.

Oh how awful

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This was in our local news today.

WSLS.com | Three Years After Crash, Mother Can't Move On

The girl died 3 years ago today Oct. 30th
So sad..but it does explain why some feel the need to leave flowers, etc. at the spot where their loved one (especially a child) died.

I'm guessing the road you're talking about is HWY 431. When we go down to Destin, we take 331, same kind of thing, but they have been widening it forever, like when i was in college, and that's been over 10 years ago.

How many people are risking their lives and other drivers lives by pulling off to the side of busy dangerous roads to build, maintain and visit these shrines? They should be illegal on most roads because of the reasons I just mentioned plus the distraction to drivers mentioned in other posts. If you want to mourn, then go to the gravesite.

They have them by me too. I know of a few families who have done them. My friend did one on the corner where her brother was killed when an old man ran a stop sign and ran into him as he was riding his Harley. They just have a picture and a cross and they light a candle under it every night to remember him. Then my OB/gyn died in an accident and her family placed a cross on the pole.

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