You've all seen crosses and other memorials along roads where someone died in an accident. Seems that you don't just go out and plant a cross for your loved one. Like everything else in this country, you need the government's permission. This set of rules is from Idaho. I assume other states do something similar. This only applies to state highways. I assume you need a permit for US highways and country roads, too.


Roadside memorials can be legal if permitted. “There is a form that needs to be filled out to make sure the roadside memorial is far enough off the road, out of the right of way, and of a standard type so it doesn’t create a traffic safety issue for drivers,” said Reed Hollinshead, public information officer for Idaho Transportation Department. “Our first concern is safety, but we don’t want to short-circuit the grieving process or disallow remembrances when they adhere to a safety standard. Each district location of ITD has a traffic office to handle the requests.”

Idaho law says, as a means of promoting road safety, the transportation department, the state police and other law enforcement officers permit relatives or friends of a person killed in a traffic accident upon a state highway may apply for a permit to erect a memorial in memory of the decedent. The memorial should be erected adjacent to the portion of the highway where the accident occurred so the memorial serves as a reminder that a fatality occurred.

The statute also said only one memorial may be placed per fatal accident.

The maximum dimensions of a memorial are 36 inches high, 16 inches wide and no more than seven pounds. Memorials should not resemble or conflict with traffic control devices, and should not use reflectors. Planting or landscaping at a memorial is not allowed.

Memorials must be erected near the milepost where the accident occurred. The person installing the memorial is responsible for contacting a utility company to identify the location of any utilities in the area. The applicant is also required to meet on-site with the department highway maintenance supervisor to review the proposed installation. The supervisor will be responsible for final approval.

Memorials must be placed a minimum of 20 feet from the roadway shoulder. Placement of a memorial in the median of any interstate or non-interstate highway or within the boundaries of incorporated cities is prohibited.

Permittees should park their vehicle away from the travel lanes and in an area where there is adequate sight distance on the highway in both directions. They must wear proper safety attire and obey all safety procedures approved by the department.

The department is not responsible for maintenance, vandalism, damage, or theft of a memorial.

Memorials not installed in compliance, not maintained in good condition, or create a traffic hazard are subject to removal by the department.

“You should check with the agency that controls the right-of-way where the memorial will be placed like the city engineering department, highway district or state department of transportation,” said Woody Cullen, code enforcement officer for the city of Twin Falls.

sounds reasonable.....bob

They are all over down here!

In Montana they are white markers not crosses. LOL

'...to make sure the roadside memorial is far enough off the road, out of the right of way...'

Does that mean 'on private property'????

Florida has them, not exactly 'regulated' though............ go past one a couple times a week that is more like a church chapel memorial, lots of flowers, solar lights, etc., even a wooden picnic table set up under the trees....

Florida road side Mems. are supposed to be up for only a year, IIRC..... seems to be no limit on the number of crosses

Usually the highway dept will have an easement that's wider than the road. The right of way is the area where cars can go and often the easement is wider than that.

while i empathize, i think there are better ways and places to memorialize their loved ones than putting a schitty memorial along a highway.

Yes, it'd seem they're against memorials.

I've driven lots of miles in Mexico (years ago, not recently)...

Those highways must be pretty dangerous there.

The white crosses look like a picket fence lining any highway you want to travel.

My parents took a long tour of Mexico years ago before it got dangerous. They said the roads are something else. To start with, construction crews don't use cones or barrels to divert traffic. They use large rocks. It gets worse from there.

I have a good friend who is a heavy equipment operator and did lots of road work down in southern Ohio. He said they encountered lots of family burial plots out in the middle of nowhere and had to go through official channels to get them moved. If you go south on 11 out of Canfield heading down into the hill country and watch off to the sides, just outside the fences, you'll see markers from family plots that had to be moved due to the road construction.

There were to be placed on edge of ROW here after filling out a form that was filed in the local maintenance office responsible for that section of road. A formality as a memo of agreement that it would
Not be a hazard to errand vehicles and that the state was not responsible to any damage it may incur by mowing or utility contractor. Also to assure it’s placement would not interfere with any underground utilities etc.

Since I left the local district TxDOT maintenance ops office at district 12 years ago, the roadside memorials have really gotten more "complex" than the solitary white wooden cross that used to be the only thing allowed.

I have seen hundreds of them while driving cross country in the big rig. I like these memorials.
There may be rules about them but usually the rules are ignored. The cops and the highway mower guys who are supposed to enforce the rules have a reverence towards these shrines and they tend to leave them alone.

These days many of these shrines are decorated with solar powered lights and they look beautiful at night.

I live near a dangerous corner where there are a few of them. Some are 20 years or older and have become nothing but barrow pit litter. The highway crews have left them there but they aren't complimentary to the deceased. They need to be removed or replaced and I doubt it'll get done.

They put those "shrines" up all over the place here... wish they would plant a tree or flower instead. Lots of people put them up off the ROW on someone else's property...

This ^^ something else to mow around

Why no memorials at hospitals or care facilities?

When I was young, I remember that an insurance company (I think) would put up a sign at the location of traffic deaths herein Iowa as an incentive to drive safely. There would often be a grouping of signs at a railroad crossing. Anyone else remember this? Richard?

The "Think" signs John. It's been many years now since I've seen them.

Then there is this.

One of the caveats in our agreement was even tho it was to be just on the inside of the states edge of ROW you also had to have consent (signature) of the adjoining property owner.

Years ago Indiana put up crosses along the road where there was a fatality to encorage safe driving. It was always easy to tell a bad entersection or curve. The state doesn't do it anymore, but people do. Personally I don't want to remember a loved one that way. I believe in cleaning the area up so as not to be remembered as a place of death. The crew at the Indy 500 paints the wall when there is a crash and we go on racing. We shouldn't think of how awful a death it was, we should remember them in life and how to keep it from happening to someone else. I had friends in highschool, 50 years ago, killed and don't need a memorial to mark those spots. Finally we are seeing solar powered stop signs that flash and simple fixes where there always seemed to be a new crop of crosses. I am a Christian that doesn't want to remember a loved one dying in a ditch every time I drive down that road.

There’s quite a few on the walls honoring those who endowed or contributed to those facilities.

They get elaborate here in Tenn,

Seen one, you’d think the guy was General Patton and The Pope all in one.

big wooden poles, white plastic chain perimeter with shelves and a big portrait,, plastic cemetery flower arrangements, candles, other trinkets.
Sometimes they hang Christmas ornaments on it, plastic Easter eggs. stuffed animals.

Seen another one, big tall cedar wood name plate engraved with a router bit, varnished. That one was the son of a fat cat that screwed me out of a couple grand after I roofed one of his spec builds, skipped town and went to Florida for 6 months, came back when his kid got killed. I decided not to sue him.

This was on I15 at the top of the pass above Wolf Creek going towards Helena last summer, I'm pretty sure I saw a few just like this, I thought they were roadside crosses.

Ever drive across the Rez on Hwy 89 north of Flagstaff ?

This is another Montana road side white cross memorial.
One of you savvy Montanans gotta recognize this one and remember the related event?

In TX, it’s wetbacks doing it. Never saw them here before we got overrun with wetbacks.

Si, los Mojados estos les gustan.

I have travelled all over Mexico, and also Guatemala and El Salvador. The Latinos love these shrines.
It was 30 years ago when I was down there you couldn't get sun powered lights back then. But I saw hundreds of these shrines, all very Catholic with a picture of the Virgin Mary and Baby Jesus etc. They would usually build a little roof, like a small cave made of bricks or rocks, and they would have a framed portrait of The Virgin, along with a picture of the deceased, and always a dozen candles. Candles always lit!

Now, this might be way out in the country with the nearest house a mile away and the inscriptions said the guy died 2 years ago. Yet, someone is coming down there once a day to put new candles in place, and light them up.

That culud man on CNN says that they're evidence of Klan activity in the area.

Last thing I want my loved ones to remember/celebrate me by is the spot where I died or on a fuggin bumper sticker "in memory of" bull schidt.

Burn me to ashes, release them in a spot I/we loved and let me go.

For good or bad, those things are for those left behind rather than for the departed.

Like flowers at the funeral.

"Lay up your treasures in heaven-----."

Yep.

And I don't wanna be remembered for the worst occasion in my life or be cheapened by a sticker next to a "baby on board" sign.

We had one like that on i-40 several years back, prisoner transfer van had a breakdown, van caught fire, all the convicts were chained to rails,

I can barely remember the spot any more. And the pickets are all long gone.

I've seen two members of the same family total out two 3/4 trucks on a dirt road within 3 miles of their farm. It's like a rite of passage.

A couple things.

Having worked my career in building and maintaining highways and roads, there are rules about placing hazards near a road. The distance varies dependent on the speed of the road. So for a high speed road, it's 30 feet from the white edge line. The reason for the clear zone is to allow an errant car to be able to safely re-enter the roadway. If I remember, a hazard is typically defined as anything more than 4" in diameter and over 4" in height. So a white cross outta say 2x4 lumber is fine. As mentioned, most road maintenance folks are very good about mowing and such around the marker. They usually are very sympathetic towards these markers as they work on those highways for a living - they probably have seen their share of deaths on the highways, and may even recall the instance that caused that marker to be placed there. It effects them and they are very reverent about the loss of someone's loved one.

As far as why folks make the markers, it's part of their grieving process. Everyone handles grief differently. They process it differently. So while it makes no sense for some, it makes complete sense for others.

We built a beaurtiful marker where my Dad crashed and died in 2004. He was forced off the road by a driver passing in a no passing zone. He went off the road, cartwheeled, rolled, and died. We placed a bronze plaque where his truck came to rest. Lots of people have stopped there and placed coins at the plaque.

Building that marker for one of the greatest men whom ever lived was the least we could do. Building that monument sure helped his family recover from that tragic loss.

Those are all over Montana wherever a sharp curve exists up in the mountains. The sharper the curve, the higher up, the more crosses.

Wetbacks are everywhere nowadays. And they can’t drive for schitt.
I suspect a lot of it’s cause they travel at night. Trying to stay under the Radar.

These guys all burned too... The deadliest highway crash in Montana history

They are all over in South Dakota, especially on the res. Highway dept puts them up at fatal accident sites.

https://dps.sd.gov/safety-enforcement/highway-safety/think-signs


Jerry

Before I click on the link....was it that fire truck that wiped out that whole family?

nope

Nope.....it wasn't.

You guys remember that jr hockey team that got destroyed in Canada a while back?

I bet you remember this Jim
How old were you in Jan 1984?

I don't recall it..

Almost one.

Before my time.




I have seen sports busses leave in terrible weather and it always give me the chills.

Sucks that the last thing the kids got to do was hang out at the IGA in Browning...
That gas tanker pullin' the pup wrapped them as it slid down the hill.

So you weren't driving the year Hwy 2 got shut down for months when an avalanche took out the Goat Lick bridge either then I guess?

Long ways around that one.....

No...but I was driving when my dad's buddy took out the Milk River bridge with a D8 on a trailer early one morning.

Few DOT men out at 6 am....

Thanks - I could not remember the name of the Des Moines insurance company that originated the signs that I remembered here in Iowa years ago.

Randy travis used to have some whiny drivel of a song

Before he went nuts and started drinkin with his balls out

Humbolt Broncos...16 dead and the truck driver who killed them plead guilty...

I absolutely agree, everyone knows they should be on the back window of your 8 year old Tahoe...

Very well written story detailing a tragedy.

Bookmarked the Flathead Beacon.

I remember that well. It impacted other communities too. Traveling for sports changed. There were trips we made to Eastern Montana that we never should have.

They're certainly beloved by those damn blue collar tweekers.

That's everywhere. Families often buried their loved ones on their farm, instead of buying a plot in a cemetery. There were four or five family plots I can think of, within a mile of my Dad's Missouri farm, and those are just the ones I know about.

When Ft. Knox was being aquired, the gov't bought up a LOT of land, including several small towns and churchgrounds. IIRC, there are 32 cemeteries on Ft. Knox alone, and Knox allows them to be serviced on Memorial Day, and allows families to clean up and maintain the gravesites.in perpetuity. Damned decent of them, really. I think Knox absorbed six or seven small towns and who knows how many churches.

I see them on beaches and roads. Zero issues with them and know the circumstances of a few of them.

there are a few in the canyon going to big sky....good reminder to slow down......I drive it a lot ...dangerous road.....bob

These rules do not apply to certain religions or nationalities. Some who are of the only group assured of heaven need this type of religious freedom to get there with beer.

Crap such as this didnt fly when I was a kid.

Dimocraps kissing ass for illegal votes is my guess.

Freaking water stations for wetbacks along highways in S Texas.

Not long after starting to post on the Fire, I was reprimanded by a few for saying the word.

Crap such as this didnt fly when I was a kid.

Dimocraps kissing ass for illegal votes is my guess.

Freaking water stations for wetbacks along highways in S Texas.

Not long after starting to post on the Fire, I was reprimanded by a few for saying the word.

The times, they are a changing.

There all over the Bakken.

Before autos, people used to die riding, and driving horses.

Very first one I ever saw was a small cross nailed on a big azz live oak tree on SH 16 btwn Poteet and Jourdanton Tx. not far from the Atascosa river bridge. Local kid discovered that big azz live oaks don’t move much when you hit ‘em with your chevy. That was about 1967.

Was quite the anomaly back then.

Yup! One of the primary causes of death and injury on the old Santa Fe trail was falling asleep driving your wagon and falling off the front and under the wheels.

I always thought the old desperado, Clay Allison, met a bizarre death and it wasn’t by the six-gun! If memory serves me right. While he was driving his wagon back to his west Texas spread, a sack of flour shifted and was sliding off toward the ground. He allegedly reached for it, grabbed it, and it pulled him off the seat and he too, ended up under the wheels of his heavily loaded wagon. The End.

Here in southern Az, they erect not just crosses and such, but full blown shrines. One between my place and Tombstone is maybe 4X4X6, block and stucco, full of your standard mother Mary and Jesus statues, along with a collection jar and of course the melted wax of a million candles.I made it my mission for a solid year to get it torn down, I contacted everyone from county health dept, to county supervisors up to senators.....nothing but crickets and bad excuses. Asked a county supervisor I caught in local Safeway store If it was no infraction of the law to erect one and required no permit, was it legal for me to take a front loader and level it? He stated he could see no problem with that?
Wish I had a drone to take pictures from above to show, literally about an acre around the chit hole is nothing but trash, bottles, cans, a thousand kotex and tampons and miles of chit paper along with the feces. Because of the high hispanic population of the county, not a soul wants to touch the hot button of public health risk and assume responsibility to remove the eye sore.

They need to be taken down.

Why remind everyone that someone or family you knew did something stupid while driving.

There are several around here that were put after one kid passed up a grade in a no passing zone and met a truck.

The other tried to crowd a truck heading south and got dead wrapped under the trailer wheels.

There are more but it makes no sense.