It's not just the flag
Every day when I drive to work I pass another of those awful homemade "memorials" to someone who has died in a crash along that section of road. This is one located on the east side of Highway 101 just where the road switches from two to four lanes as you go north. As I recall, the accident happened when a truck driver hit a deer and lost control. I am very sorry that he died in the accident. But whoever his family or friends are that put up that memorial to him have seriously neglected it for a long time and now the American flag they erected there who knows how long ago is faded and in tatters. I find that disturbing every time I drive by.
I wrote a column about these macabre road markings several years back and got an earful from a couple of people who think they are essential to their own memories of the dead person. But I haven't changed my mind. I don't want to share your grief every time I drive down the road. I don't want to see the ugly plastic flowers, the crosses, the tattered American flags, none of it. I think it's time that Caltrans promulgate some kind of rule along state roads - and the county ought to do the same - prohibiting these kinds of displays. They certainly do not inspire safer driving as far as I can tell (and I would bet that anyone claiming they do would hear from families of accident victims objecting to the implication that their loved one died from unsafe driving) and they are just unsightly and unnecessary. They are not, after all, grave markers. Let's put an end to them or at least allow Caltrans or someone to take them down when they get to look like the leavings of a decade-old Memorial Day parade.