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Roadside Memorials—Some Australian Examples
Folklore, Annual, 1999 by Robert James Smith
At Clybucca a Memorial Gardens has been erected within a kilometre of the accident site, perhaps because it was feared there might be an uncontrolled proliferation of individual memorials cluttering the roadside. What was produced was a formal shrine of the kind more often associated with war memorials, even to the provision of two flagpoles. The lists of names fall under the headings of the two bus companies involved--a rare identification of commercially sensitive names (and not given in the memorial for the Cowper accident). A most touching hand-written card was placed behind the flowers shown in the photograph: "Dear--, Even after nine years I still miss you terribly ..." There is a garden border around the perimeter for the installation of individual memorials--an opportunity taken up by only seven (two for the same victim). Space has been provided for memorials for each of the thirty-five deceased. Young male culture, which Hartig and Dunn suggested was part of the memorialisation tradition in the Newcastle study, would seem to have no role to play here. It seems rather to reflect a deeper unease about modern mobility, transience, the fragility of life, even the difficulty in identifying those responsible for the tragedies.
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The media report constant demands for the Pacific Highway to be upgraded. These occasionally reach fever pitch over the perceived dangers of accident black-spots. One such black-spot is the "Burringbar Range" which has had twenty-five deaths in five years. Recently an accident occurred which led to three fatalities. At present (February 1999), there are only two memorials on this section of road. One is a flowers-only indicator of the recent fatalities; large and prominent, the flowers play a quiet and dignified role in the debate. The fact that there are so few memorials on such a dangerous piece of road suggests that only a small percentage of bereaved people choose to, or have the opportunity to, memorialise their loss in this way, or perhaps that the practice is dying out. In this region the appearance of bunches of flowers at sites is almost universal, but few are maintained long-term to become more or less permanent markers. Those which do continue persist for a remarkably long time. Of the sites I first noted in 1995, only one has lapsed into disrepair.
An interview with a long-serving Roads and Traffic Authority (R.T.A.) official in the region confirmed that memorials were originally discouraged, but the official attitude changed to tolerance when they began to be seen as possible curbs on speed. Current R.T.A. policy is to show respect for the bereaved, but if the memorial is dangerous or an obstruction, then it will be removed. In practice memorials are only removed when they have fallen into neglect-in all, a very sympathetic response to grieving people who are never seen. Drivers interviewed for Hartig and Dunn's Newcastle study reported that they slowed down at memorial sites. However, the R.T.A. officer detailed recent radar speed tests which showed that speed has actually increased at some new sites. Perhaps one explanation for this discrepancy is that drivers wish to respect grief (or to protect the illegal memorial practice) and so exaggerate the immediate impact on their speed when they report their reactions--a remarkable example of solidarity in folk-feeling. Nevertheless, the longer-term impact may well be a calmer more thoughtful approach to driving.
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