Today’s challenge for the road crews, Roadside Memorials. Several states have legislation governing roadside memorials and that number has doubled in the last five years.

Location, location, location.

Now people feel that it’s acceptable to publicly display their grief. They have a connection with the location. The memorial fills a personal need, but complicates the highways and byways according to the Department of Transportation.

Some say the memorials were created for you. A safety reminder on your journey.

Effective.

Tina Shockley of the Delaware DOT says their is no research that indicates that roadside memorials cause excessive rubbernecking and a lead to a higher rate of accidents. In Delaware, items cannot be placed in a road’s “clear zone”- 10 feet away from the paved edge or in the right of way. By law, they are illegal. DOT wants to educate the public and does not remove existing memorials.

Niki Reeves continues to maintain a memorial for her teenage son Chad, who was killed with three other teens on a two-lane highway in Delaware several years ago. She doesn’t know how long she’ll maintain the memorial, but says she feels a connection to her son and says, “It’s somewhere I prefer to go rather than a grave. I’m closer to him there.”