Crosses by the Road

While driving through rural Kentucky recently, I was shocked by the number of roadside crosses marking the sites of traffic fatalities. Always crosses, never anything else. I was saddened and then annoyed, because according to the anecdotal evidence along the nation’s byways, Christians are by far the worst drivers in America. 

 

That raised my hackles because I was raised a Methodist and we’re all great drivers, much better than Catholics or those distracted Presbyterians checking their Google Maps for the way to their predestinations. And those NASCAR-worshipping Baptists – Lord, don’t get me started. Of course, many of the crosses no doubt mark a place where a godless drunk sent church-going innocents to their reward, so a cross doesn’t necessarily represent the spiritual leanings of the culpable party.  But after mulling it over, I finally came to the conclusion that when it comes to marking highway deaths, the other religions are obviously underreporting. 

 

I kept my eyes peeled on the way to Paducah and didn’t see a single Buddha Shakyamuni statue or Shinto shrine beside the road. I’m not familiar with their attitudes toward vehicular fatalities, but maybe a devotee of those faiths would be embarrassed to admit that a family member hit a bridge abutment, so a shrine would be a humiliating reminder. 

 

True, the Shinto and Buddhist folk aren’t heavily represented in Kentucky. But there’s a significant Jewish population in Louisville, and when’s the last time you saw a Star of David beside the road? Me neither. What are they telling us? That they don’t make mistakes? Come on. The Jews produce an outlandish percentage of geniuses in entertainment, writing, mathematics – Streisand, Bellow, Einstein, etc.  Could it be that they’re also better at taking hairpin curves while under the influence? Or is it that they just prefer not to advertise where a Chosen One lost control and became one with a sycamore? I suspect the latter.

 

A devoted Muslim doesn’t drink, so that would tend to drive the fatality rate down for that group. But I know for sure that they text while driving, because I’ve been in some pretty harrowing cab rides with followers of Islam at the wheel, the foot on the gas pedal often as leaden as the facial expression in the rear-view mirror checking Smart Phone messages. Of course, Muslims have legitimate excuses for not leaving a memorial where a believer has been martyred by a fishtailing Kenworth. For one thing, they’re rarely unanimous about anything and so far haven’t been able to agree on a symbol. But even if they had one, within hours of its roadside appearance, a patriotic local would take it out with a 12-gauge or just plow through it with his F-150 because it’s not the old rugged symbol his mama ‘nem sing about every Sunday.  

 

An atheist symbol would of course get desecrated even faster. But while the non-believers can’t agree on a single symbol, their attempts have been pretty amusing. The Darwin fish with feet gets a smile from all but the hardest-shelled theists because it’s clever but a clear slap at Christians. A crimson “A” has been suggested, as well as the atomic symbol used on military tombstones denoting “No Religion.” And the Invisible Pink Unicorn camp (I’m not making this up) has a website where you can buy IPU pins and T-shirts. My favorite, however, is the Flying Spaghetti Monster, which, of course, symbolizes something that doesn’t exist. But I somehow can’t imagine anyone wanting a wide-eyed, red wiggly thing marking where his last text abruptly ended.