Roadside Memorials & Crash Site Markers..

[Packy]

Are there many roadside memorials in your area? Have you visited a crash site marker? Some of the crash sites are in remote areas.

[goldensmom]

1. Yes
2. No

I'm surprised how many are kept up for so many years. One in our area has been there for 20+ years and is regularly maintained.

[Packy]

There was one on the highway two miles from my house. About ten years ago, a guy in his Corvette with a female passenger was heading into town in the early hours at a very high rate of speed. The roadway is dark & surrounded by rock bluffs and there is a curve and then a few hundred yards, a stoplight. You don't realize how close in you are, until you round that curve, and might see several semi rigs, sittng at the light. I figure that the vette driver swerved to miss someone stopped there, went across the median, the oncoming lanes, and into the rock embankment on the side of the road. There were flowers and a sign with the guys' name for years. I haven't seen it lately. One time I stopped at the spot, and there were lot and lots of ittybitty pieces of the car, including fragments of red fiberglass. Also, west of town on "Old 66", on a bridge guardrail, there has been a memorial there since 2008, with flowers and the name of the individual. I can think of numerous others, but those area a couple of examples. As far as plane crash sites; I know of the location of one fairly close to my house. I ride by there on my bike, once in awhile. It was very tragic--a couple, and 3 children perished. But, there are "no trespassing" signs posted at the driveway to the property. If you ever go to New Mexico, and ride the tram up to Sandia Mountain, there is a TWA crash site, and bits of the wreckage is visible, if you know where to look. Much of the plane was removed when the tram was built in the 1960's; but scraps of it are still there.

[Packy]

Here is a crash site; can you identify it?http://www.simplelivingforum.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=1480&stc=1Hint: someone in entertainment crashed here.

[Float On]

I often go on a hiking trail on the other side of town from me to go visit a plane crash site. We lost 4 friends in it. They put up a nice memorial in the middle of the woods.
There are lots around here. So many hilly, curvy roads. I pass several every day that were friends. Most are pretty simple. I have often wondered how many second life taking accidents happen in same places because the 2nd was distracted by the memorial of the 1st.

[bae]

1) Yes
2) Yes, usually when the marker is just a crashed car with someone still inside (unless they got ejected).

Most hereabouts are the result of someone consuming alcohol, combined with narrow twisting roads, poor sightlines, lots of trees close to the side of the road, and more deer than people.

[razz]

Yes, quite often young people who veered off the road and flipped the car or some where a cyclist was hit and left lying on the road. I think that it is a way of trying to come to terms with an unexpected loss.

[early morning]

There are a fair number around here. I've not actually stopped to visit any. Several years ago there was a move to ban them but if it passed, no one abides by it. I have no objection- they seem more personal, somehow, than a cemetery marker. There are a fair number of streetside memorials in town, and I've actually added to a few of those that were for my students.

[rosarugosa]

I find them odd. If I died in a car crash and someone wanted to create a memorial for me, I would much prefer a tree or a bench in the Lynn Woods Rose Garden, or something similar in a place that meant a lot to me, rather than a bunch of detritus at the telephone pole on the side of some road where I met my end. But that's just me; others clearly have a different take. I try not to be too judgmental about how others grieve.

[SiouzQ.]

I've noticed New Mexico seems to have the most crash site memorials I've ever seen in my travels. And they are quite elaborate too, true folk art. I used to stop and read them, and take photos. The last one I took pictures of was for a teenage girl who jumped from the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge outside of Taos. Very sad and poignant...

[shadowmoss]

Packy: James Dean?

[Packy]

Packy: James Dean?You know, that was a good guess! I will post a photo of the Dean Crash site, as soon as I get a new battery for my camera. What the site here is of is an intersection on hwy 287 about 3 miles north of Rock River, Wyoming. Basically, the middle o' nowhere. But in 1957, on July 3, there was a tourist attraction--a petting zoo-- off to the left, down that gravel road. A vehicle towing a trailer pulled out onto the roadway, headed south as shown in the photo. A 1957 Chevy driven by Greg Nisonger with his wife, Judy Tyler as a passenger, approached the slow-moving trailer at speed and in order to avoid rear-ending it, Nisonger swerved into the oncoming lane and skidded broadside into the path of a Northbound '53 or 54 Chevy. Judy Tyler was killed instantly, Nisonger died the next day at a hospital. A passenger in the 53 Chevy was also killed. Who was Judy Tyler? The 24-year-old actress had recently finished filming a moooveee called "Jailhouse Rock" playing co-star to Elvis Presley. The film was released after her death. She had also been a recurring character on Howdy-Doody or some kids show. Ironically, she had also been in a group photo on the cover of Look or Life Magazine, with several other Hollywood actresses, including Jayne Mansfield. Mansfield was killed in a similar crash in Mississippi almost ten years to the day later. That was the crash where a very young Mariska Hargitay was asleep in the back seat. (Shudder). Can post a photo of that crash site, too. Probably, because Jayne Mansfield was better known, and the crash site is in the Southern USA, there is a home-made roadside memorial at the crash site where she died. But, no marker at the site in Wyoming, that I know of. Another one I might post on here is the Don Rich Crash Site in Callyfornya. He was Buck Owens' side man, and was killed in a motorcycle crash in 1974, along the Pacific Coast Highway, if memory serves me correctly. It was kind of a mysterious, exact-cause-undetermined incident, as a motorist happened upon his crashed cycle in the road, and no witnesses were identified.

[LDAHL]

The County government I work for is responsible for clearing various things from the highway right of way, including the memorials people occasionally leave there. This has resulted in the occasional angry, tearful phone call.

[catherine]

There are crash site markers around here. I've never visited one. DH thinks it's a very weird phenomenon, almost like superstition (e.g. Santeria or tribal ritual). I don't agree necessarily, but I don't think I would ever leave flowers or candles at a crash site. And I have no interest in seeing where famous people lost their lives--it's kind of morbid. When we went to LA for a couple of months in the mid-90s, the first thing my MIL/BIL did was go to the scene of Simpson crime scene (I stayed home). Then again, I don't even visit cemeteries of loved ones, whereas DH feels guilty if he doesn't go to his mother's gravesite every holiday.

[ToomuchStuff]

I don't see as many in the city anymore, but haven't been to the country lately. I think in part, people do move on, in part the city isn't as good about mowing (grass can get waist high, where one car went over two days after the road was reconfigured), and in one case, the property owner put up a fence, after YEARS of the family of the deceased, trespassing to keep placing markers.
Never visit any, no reason to.
I realize it is about closure, but to me it seems as strange as seeing a new car with a in memoriam sticker in the rear window. (so their life insurance paid for your new toy?)

[iris lilies]

The County government I work for is responsible for clearing various things from the highway right of way, including the memorials people occasionally leave there. This has resulted in the occasional angry, tearful phone call.
Be thankful it's only a phone call where you are.

where I am, it's rioting and looting when the totem to Michael Brown, strung along several yards in the middle of the road, is perceived to be desecrated.

[goldensmom]

There are crash site markers around here. I've never visited one. DH thinks it's a very weird phenomenon, almost like superstition (e.g. Santeria or tribal ritual). I don't agree necessarily, but I don't think I would ever leave flowers or candles at a crash site. And I have no interest in seeing where famous people lost their lives--it's kind of morbid. When we went to LA for a couple of months in the mid-90s, the first thing my MIL/BIL did was go to the scene of Simpson crime scene (I stayed home). Then again, I don't even visit cemeteries of loved ones, whereas DH feels guilty if he doesn't go to his mother's gravesite every holiday.

Two of my siblings were killed in car accidents. One just down the road the other several miles away. I remember each time I drive by the 'crash site' but it has never occurred to me nor would I ever erect any kind of memorial. It is not something I feel I need to memorialize in a concrete way. I know one family that has picnics at the crash site and that is just weird.

[catherine]

Two of my siblings were killed in car accidents. One just down the road the other several miles away. I remember each time I drive by the 'crash site' but it has never occurred to me nor would I ever erect any kind of memorial. It is not something I feel I need to memorialize in a concrete way. I know one family that has picnics at the crash site and that is just weird.

I am so sorry for you and your family! It must have been absolutely devastating for you.

[kib]

I've noticed New Mexico seems to have the most crash site memorials I've ever seen in my travels. And they are quite elaborate too, true folk art. I used to stop and read them, and take photos. The last one I took pictures of was for a teenage girl who jumped from the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge outside of Taos. Very sad and poignant... In Mexico proper there seem to be two sorts of roadside shrines, small crosses or floral markers for accidents, and more elaborate ones which are usually erected as homage to saints. The practice seems to be that someone with money may build a shrine almost the size of a mausoleum by the side of the road in honor of their loved one (who didn't necessarily perish right there), but then everyone else is welcome to leave memorial offerings to their own people as well. This is rumor, but I've heard these sites are considered off limits to construction desires.

http://i294.photobucket.com/albums/mm100/Bisbonian/Banamichi/April%202010/P4180584.jpg
http://i294.photobucket.com/albums/mm100/Bisbonian/Banamichi/April%202010/P4180589.jpg

[Packy]

Nice, kib. I like that one.

[Tenngal]

Are there many roadside memorials in your area? Have you visited a crash site marker? Some of the crash sites are in remote areas.

Yes, most of the time crosses are left along with a few other items. The road crews seem to be respectful of the memorials, cleaning around it, leaving no damage.