Crosses, broken children and the French

In Week Four of the Road Trip I talk about (amongst other things) our drive across the Big Sky state of Montana. Ten years ago, Montana had no official speed limit. "Reasonable and Prudent" were the magic words on the open highways. With so much freedom of speed out there, bad judgment and a lack of prudence was inevitable, so in an effort to convince people to slow down, the American Legion has been erecting crosses on the side of the road, marking the sites of fatal accidents since 1954. In the travelogue I couldn't decide if this was a more subtle or less subtle way of controlling speed demons than say a bulky automated radar detector that flashes your speed next to the current speed limit. All I knew was that it was effective. When a sobering reminder of death whips by you every half-hour or so, you can't help but look down and say, "Oh crap how fast am I going?"



As it turns out, no matter how morose or non-subtle you think the Montana highway cross program is, it is actually a THOUSAND times more subtle than what they've been doing over in France since 2000. Apparently French drivers are among the most reckless in the world... certainly in all of Europe according to the Brits. In an effort to curb their own driver mortality, the French have elected to start putting up roadside death markers of their own. But rather than little white crosses, they went with big black human-shaped cutouts. These cutouts are about four feet tall and painted black with red lightning bolts through their heads and chests. They look like silhouettes of children whose bodies have cracked open upon impact.



At first I was thinking that this should be another addition to my several-years-old humor column that talks about how the French are the silliest people on earth. But now I'm thinking that this should actually earn them a checkmark in the positive column. What an awesomely non-PC way of getting an important job done. I'm sure people bitched and complained about it (they are French after all), but in the long run, I bet you these morbid silhouettes are working. I imagine they are impossible to miss, and with their gruesome implications I imagine they are impossible to ignore. So kudos to France for doing something crazy and way out there that pisses people off but actually has a positive outcome.