PETA once again equates animals with humans as they continue with the "Meat is Murder" campaign.
They want the Illinois Department of Transportation to erect official roadside memorials 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 decision comes from a May accident on I-80 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.
PETA said the memorials would remind truck drivers that they are taking "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.
PETA has also 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."
A IDOT spokesman said applications would most certainly be denied, saying the law is "strictly for deceased people."
