page_title: Roadside memorial
section_title: United States
hierarchical_section_title: Roadside memorial / History and practice / United States
caption_attribution_description: Svenska: En Minnesplats för en ung flicka som hittades vid "Världens ände" i Ystad 2013. Platsen besöks och sköts fortfarande 2019.
context_page_description: A roadside memorial is a marker that usually commemorates a site where a person died suddenly and unexpectedly, away from home. Unlike a grave site headstone, which marks where a body is laid, the memorial marks the last place on earth where a person was alive – although in the past travelers were, out of necessity, often buried where they fell.
  Usually the memorial is created and maintained by family members or friends of the person who died. A common type of memorial is simply a bunch of flowers, real or plastic, taped to street furniture or a tree trunk. A handwritten message, personal mementos, etc. may be included. More sophisticated memorials may be a memorial cross, ghost bike, or a plaque with an inscription, decorated with flowers or wreaths.
  Roadside memorials tend to be clustered along the busiest roadways and often at intersections.
context_section_description: The spread  of spontaneous roadside memorials to mark the site of fatal traffic accidents in the United States is a relatively new phenomenon. There is a gravestone-style memorial in Ellington, Connecticut marking a child's death in 1812.  A typical memorial includes a cross (usually wooden), flowers, hand-painted signs, and, in the case of a child's death, stuffed animals.
  The spread of roadside memorials in the United States has increased in recent decades as a result of large immigrant populations from Mexico entering the country. And while not limited to Mexican populations, roadside memorials are most common in areas with large Mexican populations. Formerly, in funerary processions where a group would proceed from a church to a graveyard carrying a coffin, the bearers would take a rest, or descanso in Spanish, and wherever they set the coffin down, a cross would be placed there in memory of the event. The modern practice of roadside shrines commemorate the last place a person was alive before receiving fatal injuries, even if they should actually die in a hospital after the crash.
  In the southwestern United States, they are also common at historic parajes on old long distance trails, going back to the roots of the tradition, and also marked the graves of people who died while traveling. A descanso memorial may be decorated especially for the holidays, and for significant anniversaries in the person's life.  A descanso memorial for a child may be decorated with special toys, even toy vignettes of family life, and votive candles may be placed there on special nights.
  In the United States, the legal situation varies from state to state.
  In New Mexico, Department of Transportation crews undertaking new construction are not required to protect them, but usually either avoid altering them, or otherwise place them as close to where they originally were as possible once construction has been completed as a courtesy.
  In California, Streets and Highways Code Section 101.10 directs the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) to place and maintain memorial signs along state highways that read “Please Don't Drink and Drive” followed by “In Memory of {victim's name}.” Caltrans places signs at the request of victims’ relatives when there is a fatality as a result of an alcohol or drug-impaired driver. The signs are to remain in place for a period of seven years. The department shall charge the requesting party a fee to cover the department’s cost in designing, constructing, placing, and maintaining that sign, and the department’s costs in administering this section.
  The states of Colorado, Massachusetts, Kentucky, and Wisconsin ban such memorials.
  In the state of Delaware, roadside memorials are illegal per the Clear Zone Act for safety reasons. As an alternative to roadside memorials, the Delaware Highway Memorial Garden located at the Smyrna Rest Area consists of a path with bricks bearing the names of people who died along roads in Delaware. Other states impose specific requirements for roadside memorials.
  In Birmingham, Alabama, roadside memorials have been removed from Interstate highways. Some people view unauthorized street memorials as illegal and think they constitute the taking of public property for private purposes, and are also a distraction and therefore dangerous to the motoring public.  Others think they serve as a sort of public service announcement that reminds drivers to be careful and drive safely, and are no more distracting than any other roadside advertisement.  For anyone but those close to the death, they may do little but clutter the landscape. If the memorial is located on a road that the loved ones seldom or never travel, or in a remote area, it may be seen as a form of grandstanding.
  Using a Christian cross as a memorial along a public highway can be seen as an illegal endorsement of religion and has been challenged in a growing number of lawsuits by secular groups concerned about the separation of church and state.  
  On 18 August 2010 the Tenth Circuit held that the State of Utah violated t
caption: A memorial site for a young girl who took her life in the ocean in Ystad 2013. The site is still being visited and maintained in 2019.
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