States slowly being forced to address highway shrines

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Alongside the nation's highways, tributes to the dead rise like dandelions on a springtime lawn.

For some, the roadside memorials are sacred reminders of where a loved one died. Others call them distractions on already dangerous stretches of the road.

Regardless, states increasingly are being forced to address the shrines, which have become an almost routine part of the mourning process for people who lose someone to a highway tragedy.

There is no federal law governing the roadside markers, leaving state lawmakers to negotiate the emotionally charged issue on their own.

"This has developed into quite a growing trend," said Barry Hopkins, former chief infrastructure policy analyst with the Council of State Governments. "At no time before had you seen states have to grapple with the issue of roadside memorials. Some attempted to do it through legislation, but that brought a public outcry from victims' groups who considered it trying to legislate people's grief away."

The most frequent change made by highway crews, he said, is moving the memorial away from the edge of the roadway. He said there have been no complaints from families because of that.

Hopkins, who last year studied policies on roadside memorials across the country, said only a few states have outright bans on them. A few states allow only state-issued signs that bear the victim's name, while most have no policy.

Missouri encourages people to remember crash victims through its adopt-a-highway program. Department of Transportation spokesman Jeff Briggs said safety is the top concern, both for those who erect the memorials and drivers who might be distracted by them.

"Although we discourage people from doing it because of the possibility of people out there working on them at the side of the road -- which could be dangerous -- we try not to disturb them unless the memorials themselves pose some kind of safety threat," Briggs said.

Training for safetyHe said the department suggests the adopt-a-highway program as an alternative because it lets participants remember loved ones in a safe way, providing them with training and orange vests while they maintain the section of highway where their signs are posted.

He said about 100 groups participate in the program specifically to remember someone who has been killed in a crash.

Karen Waldram of Kansas City, Mo., said the memorial she set up in Independence four years ago has helped her deal with the loss of her husband. Clark Waldram was killed on Sept. 18, 2000, when a drunken driver crossed the center line and collided with his motorcycle.

Clark Waldram had been on his way to a Boy Scout meeting when he died, she said. The driver who hit him was convicted of second-degree murder and was sentenced to more than 15 years in prison.

"That's the last place he was," Waldram said of her husband. "It just brings comfort to know that. It's like he's more there than at the funeral home or cemetery." She said her husband worked at the Kansas City Zoo and many of his friends live in the area where he was killed. The memorial helps them remember him, too.

Now a victim advocate for Mothers Against Drunk Driving, Waldram said she knows many other people who have put up roadside memorials when they lost a loved one to a traffic accident.

She built her husband's memorial next to one that already was there for someone else. She stops at the site about once every two months to clean up beer bottles that passing motorists have flung at it.

"I know people don't understand it, but it's something about that last thought," Waldram said. "It's another stop I go make." Rob Zettle, associate professor of psychology at Wichita State University, said roadside memorials are a form of public mourning, a lot like the obituaries printed in the local newspaper.

"They have become so popularized and visible that it's become a social norm or expectation for people who lose a loved one," Zettle said. "For some, in some sense if they don't do that, the mourning process is not quite complete.

"It may be a little more intense than looking at the obituary page in the paper, but it's not all that dissimilar."