There has been a tempest in a teapot in our area recently about the memorials people erect along the side of the road for family members or friends who died on that spot.

State law tells us that these roadside memorials are against the law. They make it difficult for the workers to mow, and after a while the elements turn them into just so much litter.

As a professional truck driver, I have spent thousands of hours travelling over miles of interstate. I have seen the things that people do in their vehicles (you would not believe), along with some really bad driving habits. I spend a great deal of time trying not to become a statistic, or causing someone else to be one, and being reminded that someone died along every mile of road that I’m driving along is not a thought that needs to be at the forefont of my mind.

Cemeteries and family burial plots, scattering ashes to the wind, are what we do with our deceased family members. Safe places were you can commune with the dead. Why would you endanger your life along the highway to put up a memorial? I can hear the members of my family deceased or not questioning my sanity for even thinking of doing such a thing.

If you feel the need to have a visual memorial, make one in your home. Many cultures keep shrines to their deceased family members in an out of the way place in their home. Light a candle by a picture of the deceased, talk to them, follow the old tradition of setting a place for them at the dinner table on Halloween, but PLEASE do not risk your life and make further grief for your family to stick a cross by the side of a highway.