In February 2022, a crash on Ohio 19 in Ottawa County took the life of Shannon Roberts’ 17-year-old son, Richie, and his friend, who was driving. “He was a great kid and didn’t deserve what happened,” she says. “It was a complete accident and nobody’s to blame.”
Rocked with grief and not knowing really what else to do, she decided to put up a memorial — a taller cross and two smaller ones on either side, with photos of her son and his friend and a small collection of items left by friends, family, and the community. The memorial isn’t at the exact site where the crash occurred, though very near, about 15 feet off the roadway. “It was better and safer to have it where it is now,” she says. “And we got permission from the landowner to put it up.”
Shannon Roberts placed a memorial near where her son, Richie, and his friend died in a crash in Oak Harbor in 2022.
Drivers in Ohio pass them by, often without a second thought — a small cross or a bouquet of flowers, a candle or a stuffed animal, any of a number of seemingly insignificant trinkets. But to the folks who have erected these roadside memorials, they mean the world.
“There’s a sense of honor and respect” to them, says Matt Bruning, a spokesman for the Ohio Department of Transportation. It’s unfortunate, to say the least, but in Ohio more than 1,000 people a year die in traffic crashes. Most folks who set out to honor loved ones lost on the roadside don’t check with ODOT first; they just do what feels right.
Officially, roadside memorials on ODOT rights-of-way are illegal. In fact, anything placed on those rights-of-way requires a permit — and the state does not issue such permits. But it doesn’t get a lot of enforcement attention from state officials. In fact, season after season, ODOT workers dutifully mow around memorials, and generally they’re not disturbed. Bruning says ODOT doesn’t track the number or location of the impromptu shrines, and to his knowledge, no one has ever been cited for erecting one.
“But at the same time, we have to keep safety in mind and the ability to do our jobs,” Bruning says. “They can become a hazard and our crews have to maintain the roadsides around them. If we ever do have to take action, we’ll take that roadside memorial back to our closest garage and make every effort we can to find the person responsible so we can return it to them, and hopefully they can find another way of doing it.”
So it’s a subtle truce: ODOT safety concerns and respect for the grief of Ohio families coexist with unobtrusive crosses and mementos of those lost tragically on the state’s roadways. “I guess one thing I would add is that when we do take down a roadside memorial, it’s not from a place of disrespect,” he says. “It’s just that safety is our No. 1 priority.”
Roberts says she never really noticed roadside memorials, or thought much about them, before the accident. But that’s all changed now. “I feel like I see a lot of them everywhere now,” she says. “Honestly, I think the bigger the better. Anything to bring awareness to safety and stupidity all at the same time.”
Roberts lives in nearby Fremont and drives by her son’s memorial often.
“We’ll go out there, hold our memorial at the site,” she says. “We do see new flowers or rocks and a picture here or there. We don’t have a set time limit on it, but I’d like to keep it up and keep some kind of awareness going on. Especially for young kids and everyone driving who’s not taking into consideration it’s not just their own lives, but that everyone else on the road is in your hands, too.”
Or, another way...
The State of Ohio offers a way to more permanently honor someone’s memory rather than erecting homemade roadside memorials.
The Adopt-a-Highway Litter Program is a safe, useful — and legal — way to honor someone killed in a crash. The program allows people to “adopt” a mile of state highway by collecting trash there four times a year. Friends and relatives can get together and reminisce while they accomplish something positive. The state provides trash bags, grabbers, and disposal of collected trash along that stretch of road. ODOT will then erect an official highway sign in memory of that loved one. “I wish people would just keep their trash inside their vehicles, but unfortunately, they don’t, and taxpayers spend millions a year to deal with it,” says Matt Bruning of ODOT. “This is a safe way to both impact the problem and to memorialize a loved one.”
For information, visit https://www.transportation.ohio.gov/programs/adopt-a-highway.
