As in many parts of the world, roadside memorials in Hawaii are erected to honor victims of traffic crashes or tragedies. A bill to create rules and a permitting process to govern the markers, usually a cross or small monument with flowers, has been proposed in the City Council. But rather than go overboard in a misguided attempt to legislate grief, the city instead should use common sense in adopting a policy that acknowledges the need to keep public ways safe and clear while being mindful of survivors’ sensitivities.
City Transportation Services Director Wayne Yoshioka has until the end of June to recommend administrative rules that would make the proposed city ordinance unnecessary. Councilman Tom Berg’s bill, deferred till then, aims to require families to obtain permits for roadside memorials and remove them within 60 days. A time limit makes sense; but it seems awkward to require a permit for what are often spontaneous and immediate expressions of grief and loss.
Yoshioka’s task should be fairly simple, as the city could implement a sensitive policy patterned after one that exists at the state Department of Transportation, which allows such homemade shrines be within a certain size and to remain for no more than 30 days, among other rules. If still there after then, the department "will need to remove the memorial," according to the department’s "Roadside Memorial Policy." That all sounds more than reasonable.
The issue of roadside memorials was raised after two crosses were removed just off Farrington Highway (a state highway) in front of Mauna Lahilahi Beach Park, where two sons of Makaha resident Deborah Stokes died in a crash more than eight years ago. Stokes discovered only recently while driving to work that the crosses had been removed, which she said "hit me like a ton of bricks."
The state’s policy requires that memorials be placed as far away from the roadway as possible, but because the crosses were actually on park property, the city got involved. City Parks Director Gary Cabato acknowledged that the removal could have been handled better; certainly, though, government has an obligation to keep public sites in optimal condition for all to use.
The city may have been unaware of the state policy for some time and developed no policy of its own. When the Star-Advertiser’s Kokua Line called the city administration three years ago about its policy on roadside memorials, a spokesman did not respond.
Yoshioka has acknowledged that the state regulates roadside memorials within its department’s administrative policies, and is right in preferring city policies be established through rule-making instead of a bill.
The roadside memorials are forms of expression and an argument can be made that they should be protected by the First Amendment. The problem is that they can be a distraction to motorists that could result in accidents, and the policy by the state is a reasonable method to bring them under control. The city can now do the same.
