The exorcism of the roadside ghosts

Somewhere, I'm sure, I must already have written about a feauture of the French roadsides: the life-size black silhouettes standing - I assume - at the locations of fatal accidents. I started seeing them, all over the country, a few years ago - and was thoroughly spooked by them. As a road safety campaign it's more vivid than our: "Last 3 years: 92 accidents" type notices.

This year, they were much diminished. Literally, too. The full size figures - all identical, as far as I could see - of indeterminate gender have been replaced by smaller silhouettes, fully dressed. Perhaps they represent specific individuals, but they are no longer Everyman.

Perhaps the campaign is becoming more familiar, and so less effective. For the first time this year I saw a silhouette with a poster stuck on his chest, like a sandwich-board man.

( And where have the old ghosts gone? )