Roadside memorial bouquets

If you look at my post immediately after yours Greatnan you will see I understood you perfectly. The confusion obviously lies in "put up" but it did not occur to me that you might mean increase.

I am afraid that is completely wrong. There is nothing in my post to suggest that giving the statistics has any influence on accidents.
For goodness sake, I know some of you like to have a go at me for things I have said, but your really must stop twisting my posts to suit your own ends.
Perhaps you could explain to me how my wording was ambiguous. Did anybody but Aka and Ana find it ambiguous?
I presume Aka stands for Also Known As.......hm...

Ambiguous wording, that's all.

Aka - where on earth have I said that? I merely said that in France they sometimes put a sign showing the statistics at the side of the road.

Think she meant they actually put up the figures so people see how many accidents have happened on that road. I've seen that on the A6 in Northumberland [a road that has a lot of dangerous overtaking on it].

greatnan can you please direct me to the proof of your statement about memorials increasing the incidences of serious injury and death please?

Placing flowers or football shirts at an accident black spot is just madness. What if you caused another accident while parked or walking there? Or if the football shirt flapped onto someone's windscreen in the high winds at that spot. Please keep memorials to safer places. And please, take the cellophane off.

I hate these memorials for all sorts of reasons. Here in MK there are lots of 'shrines' dotted along the roadside, not just those piles of flowers that follow a fatality but proper memorials that are left to look sad and miserable years after the event. I can think of at least eight in a very small part of the town. But try and remove them and there's all manner of outcry. I don't understand the need myself - there is usually a funeral followed by a burial or cremation or a scattering or whatever so why the need to create these road-side affairs? Frankly, I find them distracting and feel they are just as likely to cause another accident than to be a useful, lasting reminder of a lost loved one. And before anyone says 'imagine yourself in their shoes' I have been in those shoes and have put a headstone in a cemetery where I lay my flowers.

We have white lines and cats' eyes but still drivers overtake recklessly . We have the odd deer springing out too and sometimes foxes dashing across . I think statistics are a good idea. I was at a train station yesterday (not a busy one)and it was announced how many people had been injured in the past year . Quite sobering !

They really are shocking, but I suppose that is the point of them. They also put up the statistics of road accidents, serious injuries and deaths.

Gorki I used to live near a nasty innocent looking bend which attracted several really bad accidents and fatalities and constant minor ones. Lighting wasn't the problem or visability, but what stopped the accidents was when white lines where painted down the middle of the road.

I think Montana's crosses are an excellent idea, but the black cut out figures sound a bit ghoulish and surely upsetting for the relatives.

I have noticed that just lately more of these roadside flowers have been uncovered from their wrappings. Can it be the power of Gransnet?

In some parts of France they erect black cut-out figures at the side of the road - half size if a child has died. Very chilling.

here in Montana , the State puts up crosses , where there has been a fatality .

Probably to remind people to very careful on certain bends .

I think it is an excellent idea .

JO8

You know what ,, you can be inspired at times .

X

loneranger .........more things in heaven and earth than this world dreams of.

Agree, it may be more likely to be upsetting. Perhaps she is psychic and doesn't know it.

My advice would be to leave it be. It might upset the family more than comfort them.

Its strange that this subject has come up now. My daughter was at a health talk due to her work last week and when she left at 8pm and was driving home she thought she saw a young man with his head in his hands at the side of the road, she slowed down ready to help him and noticed there wasn't a damaged bike anywhere near so couldn't work out how he may have been injured. Taking her eyes away to watch the road and looking back again, he wasn't there, just a bunch of flowers!!
She is an intelligent young woman and not psychic in any way normally, should she find out who the flowers where for and contact the family?

Just got back.

I would just like to apologise for upsetting Aka or anybody else for implying that people who leave flowers covered in cellophane would ever be the same people who would jettison litter from car windows.

Ever.

I respect and understand the impulse to commemorate a sudden or violent death by leaving flowers, messages and candles at or near the site. I think it's interesting that the growth in the practice of creating these shrines has happened as formal religious observance has been in decline. I think it may indicate a deep-seated need in many people for ritual and for spiritual comfort.

I've been to the 'shrine' erected in memory of James Dean who famously was killed driving his Porsche on a Californian road (an American friend lives in nearby Salinas).

The memorial is about a mile from the crash site in a lay-by, presumably to prevent further accidents.

I find the impromptu memorials very poignant, but distracting for drivers.

They have. They have reduced the speed limit to 40mph !! (for the built -up bit of the road only ) Hasn't made a scrap of difference! When our fence was demolished a few weeks ago by a night-time driver I reported it to the Police and said we needed some lights on the road (at the moment there are 2 ). Their reply was that if I told the Council they might reduce the speed limit further. This will have no effect unless they take measures to enforce it. Sadly we also lost our cat to a speeding driver some years ago.

There is a dangerous road in Greece - I've a feeling it is on the way to Piraeus but can't quite remember . It is lined with very solid concrete shrines to those who have written themselves off or been written off in their cars. It hasn't in my opinion acted as a deterrent and as Gorki commented three memorials in one road why hasn't the council looked into it.

Yes Gorki it's a reminder to be thankful for what we have.

Hi folks. Didn't mean I'm off for ever, just taking a breather. Thanks for your concerns I have just sorted out my 'wardrobe' packed away my woollies and thermals.
#howzthatforpositivethinking