In 2025, WSDOT paused plans to remove roadside memorial signs after the families of people killed in crashes on state highways pushed back.
OLYMPIA, Wash. — More than a year after the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) paused plans to remove roadside memorial signs, the agency has now updated its guidelines to allow for the signs to remain in place.
On Tuesday, WSDOT announced a new policy that would allow sponsors to renew signs every 10 years, indefinitely. The signs, which include the names of victims and a safety message, are placed along state roadways near the sites of deadly collisions.
“We wish these signs weren’t needed,” Secretary of Transportation Julie Meredith said. “Every single one is the story of a child, partner, friend — someone who was loved and didn’t make it home.”
WSDOT said the new guidelines were developed using feedback from victims’ families and the public.
In 2025, KING 5 spoke with Laura Vey-Ashby, whose brother William Vey was killed by a drunk driver in 1988, about why his memorial sign is important to her.
“I watch the pain of my parents losing a child, and it is nothing that I want anybody else to go through,” Vey-Ashby said. “Plus, it is a memory of my brother.”
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