The Grauniad, Ghost Bikes article

First.Aspect

The Article
Well, I'm sure that this will have been debated here before, but what is the general consensus?

I have mixed feelings myself, tending towards disliking them. Since my own accident, I've found things relating to people hurting themselves doing what they love a great deal more distressing. I don't feel that I need to be reminded of cycling dangers by a semi permanent memorial, and more than there should be a statue of a person everywhere a pedestrian has been struck by a car. It just seems so much more permanent than flowers by the road, and can it really be any good for friends and family to hang on to the particular spot and the particular event for very long? Isn't it pretty much the last event and the last place you'd want to be reminded of?

Origamist

I think it's a fraught and very personal issue. Some families want a roadside memorial to commemorate the life of their loved one, others might never want to set foot at the site of the collision. I feel it is important to respect the wishes of the bereaved, where at all possible.

Personally, I would not want a ghost bike to mark the spot of my demise, but I think I would like some form of understated memorial: a tree, shrub, bench, etc if it were practicable.

The wider societal issues concerning the memorialisation of traumatic road deaths are more complex and I'm unsure where I stand on the subject.

rick_chasey

If I got killed on the road, Ideally (though not quite practical) I'd like a sign by the side of the road with massive flashing lights, letting them know that I was killed there, and how I was killed.

"Rick Chasey - cyclist - was killed here by a lorry. The lorry driver was asleep".

I always though the ghost bikes were to 'haunt' the drivers, not other cyclists.

Torvid

Might just be my warped sence of humor but i'd like a speed bump and a sign wit the reg of the car that got me on it and the words "if he'd slowed down you wouldn't now have to".

On ghost bikes I can't see how they would put people off they are a good reminder that you need to be responsible for your own safty though.

davis

Origamist wrote:

The wider societal issues concerning the memorialisation of traumatic road deaths are more complex and I'm unsure where I stand on the subject.

It's just a piece of road.

I know that sounds unfeeling, but sometimes people die. This is genuinely very sad, but putting flowers/shrines/other memorials up doesn't change the way the rest of the world feels or behaves. At best they're distracting, and they tend to be left at the exact locations accidents are more likely to happen.

Origamist

davis wrote:

Origamist wrote:

The wider societal issues concerning the memorialisation of traumatic road deaths are more complex and I'm unsure where I stand on the subject.

It's just a piece of road.

I know that sounds unfeeling, but sometimes people die. This is genuinely very sad, but putting flowers/shrines/other memorials up doesn't change the way the rest of the world feels or behaves. At best they're distracting, and they tend to be left at the exact locations accidents are more likely to happen.

It might be just a piece of road to you and countless thousands, but to those of who have lost a friend or family member, the location can be invested with a huge amount of meaning and poignancy.

Furthermore, you’ve unintentionally highlighted one of the fault lines I was alluding to. On the one hand you’re saying these memorials/shrines have no impact on the way people behave, but in the next sentence, you’re saying they could be a distraction. Which is it?

In France, they temporarily set up silhouettes where pedestrians have been killed as a warning to other roads users. The effectiveness of such safety measures is certainly open to question, but some people clearly believe they reduce road danger.

davis

Origamist wrote:

davis wrote:

Origamist wrote:

The wider societal issues concerning the memorialisation of traumatic road deaths are more complex and I'm unsure where I stand on the subject.

It's just a piece of road.

I know that sounds unfeeling, but sometimes people die. This is genuinely very sad, but putting flowers/shrines/other memorials up doesn't change the way the rest of the world feels or behaves. At best they're distracting, and they tend to be left at the exact locations accidents are more likely to happen.

It might be just a piece of road to you and countless thousands, but to those of who have lost a friend or family member, the location can be invested with a huge amount of meaning and poignancy.

I'm one of those people you're talking about, but it's still just a piece of road. The location will always be significant, but I understand that it's only significant to me.

Furthermore, you’ve unintentionally highlighted one of the fault lines I was alluding to. On the one hand you’re saying these memorials/shrines have no impact on the way people behave, but in the next sentence, you’re saying they could be a distraction. Which is it?

Good point, and poorly worded on my part. I'm saying that at best they're unhelpful to or unnoticed by people unconnected with the dead. At worst, they're an outright distraction

davmaggs

We've got 65 million people on this island and virtually no-one is of any historical importance and will only be remembered by the very closet of friends and family, even then only for a short time. Whilst a small group grieves and that is sad and I do empathise, we cannot hand over the public space to anyone who wants to build a memorial and to built it out of what they like just because they are upset.

Mountains are getting clogged up with tat and on various road trips I see an increasing trend for rotting heaps of flowers wrapped in mangey plastic or laminated photos that are no longer maintained even by those that claimed to care.

The compromise is to give them a month and then for the council to clear them.

CiB

davmaggs wrote:

We've got 65 million people on this island and virtually no-one is of any historical importance and will only be remembered by the very closet of friends and family, even then only for a short time. Whilst a small group grieves and that is sad and I do empathise, we cannot hand over the public space to anyone who wants to build a memorial and to built it out of what they like just because they are upset.

Mountains are getting clogged up with tat and on various road trips I see an increasing trend for rotting heaps of flowers wrapped in mangey plastic or laminated photos that are no longer maintained even by those that claimed to care.

The compromise is to give them a month and then for the council to clear them.

This is the correct response. People die. For those left behind it's a life changing, but for the rest of us it's 2 column inches in the local rag. Harsh but true. We read about someone dying, pause to wonder if the victim was to known us and move on.

I have a big issue with roadside memorials; like davmaggs I don't want to see rotting flowers, some mawkish roadside memorial tribute or whatever. Build your little tribute in the immediate aftermath if you must, but the council should turn up a month or so later and clear it away. My view. Yours may vary.

When I go, I want a million mourners lining the streets, a national day of mourning and SC Stats to be rebranded in the new BR colour scheme to remind people of better times. I don't expect some, more or all of these to happen mind. As long as there isn't some ghastly roadside wooden cross, a some rotting flowers in a dirty bag and - please no - a teddy bear.

Jay dubbleU

The main issue with ghost bikes, flags, flowers etc is that they distract drivers. Personally if I were killed I wouldn't want my memorial to be a tatty bike.

davis

CiB wrote:

I have a big issue with roadside memorials; like davmaggs I don't want to see rotting flowers, some mawkish roadside memorial tribute or whatever. Build your little tribute in the immediate aftermath if you must, but the council should turn up a month or so later and clear it away. My view. Yours may vary.

Nail. Head.

And +1 to davmaggs, too.

il_principe

Depends on the bike. Some white painted crappy Hybrid? No.

A hand painted carbon fibre road going beauty (that zaps anyone who attempts to touch it)? Yes please.

Gussio

Only seen a couple of ghost bikes; one on Old St and another near Notting Hill. Never occured to me that they might be offputting or a distraction. I find them sobering and a reminder to reflect on the unfortunate fate of an unknown fellow cyclist.

First.Aspect

I should say that I don't buy into the argument that they are a distraction. We are damn near invisible when we are cycling on the road so I don't think that a bike on a pavement is going to distract any drivers. I think that the majority of people who notice them will be other cyclists and for that reason I don't think they achieve what they are intended to achieve.

This is all probably old news here anyway.

davis

They've distracted me the first time I drove in London and happened to see one. I saw a very odd looking bike in a prominent place, and I gawped at it like a muppet.

rolf_f

Plus one for the keeping the roads clear of mawkish tat. Fortunately, we don't seem to have yet suffered the ghost bike disease in Leeds though I'd imagine they would be quite up for it in Liverpool (the National Centre for wallowing in self pity)

rjsterry

Not a fan of 'memorials' either, but I thought the point of the ghost bikes was more to raise awareness among motorists.

lost_in_thought

I wonder what %age of the UK's roadsides would be covered if people put down, say, 1 average sized bouquet at the site of every road or roadside death...

No point to make, just thinking out loud. I am not sure what my opinion is on this.

rjsterry

lost_in_thought wrote:

I wonder what %age of the UK's roadsides would be covered if people put down, say, 1 average sized bouquet at the site of every road or roadside death...

No point to make, just thinking out loud. I am not sure what my opinion is on this.

Some places would be waist deep, others would be empty for miles. I grew up near here and there was pretty much always a bouquet decomposing by the foot of the arch where the latest boy racer had taken the bend too fast and hit the brickwork.

SimonAH

Sorry, I don't like the roadside stuff at all.

There's a bit in an Iain Banks book where someone is killed running into some concrete street furniture and the catharsis is for the friends to go out to it with sledgehammers and smash it to rubble. Don't know why I mention this but I thought it poignant.

When I die I'd like the spot of the greasy fireball to be marked with a discrete blue plaque - but only because I will be king of the world and my legions of lovers will demand it.

t4tomo

I personally don't buy the "distraction" piece. If anything it makes you slow down and raises your awareness of potential dangers either as a cyclist or driver, which if its an "accident blackspot" can only be a good thing.


I'd like a mechanised automated folding and unfolding Brompton please if i go early to the great framebuilder in the sky.

ddraver

If anyone puts Campag on mine I ll come back and haunt them!!

Mr_Cellophane

I passed one today in South London. It wasn't white just a grotty orangey brown.

Some make me wonder how on earth the cyclist was involved in an accident on that spot.