Shrine to those who died on the road is itself a deadly hazard

travel

Remembrance --- and hazard --- on the road

Part of Panama's culture is the remembrance of people who died in roadside accidents by the placement of little shrines by the scene of the mishap. Because we are a predominantly Catholic country, these markers tend to feature Catholic imagery.

This particular shrine, on the median of the Pan-American Highway in Bejuco, marks the scene of a particularly horrible accident --- six fatalities --- that took place a few years ago.

But there it is, a concrete object on the median, by its very nature holding the prospect of another death or injury if ever a car runs off the road and strikes it. Highway safety is an underdeveloped technology, of which the law takes scant recognizance and about which people don't think very much, here in Panama.

Photo by Eric Jackson