PETA Calls for Roadside Memorials for Animals Killed in Highway Accidents

By Chuck Sudo in News on Dec 29, 2011 8:00PM

Earlier this week, PETA opened another front in its "Meat is Murder" war and called on the Illinois Department of Transportation to erect official roadside memorials sign to honor the animals that are killed in highway accidents. So now, not only is meat murder, so are the trucks that carry the meat.

PETA's lobbying stems from a May accident on I-80 near Hazel Crest where a truck carrying cattle turned over on an overpass, sending 16 of the cows to their deaths. A second accident in October killed another six cows near Cambridge Illinois. Tracy Patton, who's spearheading the campaign in Illinois, told the Tribune's John Hilkevitch the memorials would remind truck drivers of their responsibility "to the thousands of animals they haul to their deaths everyday."

"It's a big enough tragedy that these animals end up in slaughterhouses, where they are kicked, shocked with electric prods and finally dragged off the trucks to their deaths. Sparing them from being tossed from a speeding truck and deprived of care afterward, sometimes for several hours, seems the least that we can do."

A state law passed in 2007 allowed the erection of official highway memorials for victims of drunk drivers on Illinois highways. Known as "Tina's Law" in honor of Tina Ball, a road worker who was killed by a drunk driver in 2003 on I-57, the law was later amended to include victims of any highway fatality. Five memorials have been erected since the law went into effect.

In addition to being another stunt by PETA, Patton is being sincere in her objective. Patton filed applications for the two accidents involving the cows, asking that IDOT waive its "qualified relative" requirement on the grounds that there are no "surviving family members for animals in the meat trade." She applied as a "concerned Illinois resident in lieu of living relatives."

IDOT spokesman Guy Tridgell told Hilkevitch Patton's applications would most certainly be denied, saying the law is "strictly for deceased people."

Which would allow PETA to getting back to the business of treating humans like meat in their anti-fur campaigns.