Statue of St. James to be removed after causing traffic panic
The Plzeň regional court has ordered the removal of a statue of St. James standing on a pedestrian bridge above the main road from Plzeň to Karlovy Vary. Ever since its installation it has alarmed drivers who believe they are seeing someone about to commit suicide.
The statue, which was installed just a few weeks ago, was to have been the pride of the Chotíkov municipality, admired from near and far. Instead it has attracted negative publicity and intense criticism from police and social media users for dangerously distracting drivers, who frequently mistake the life-sized statue for a person about to commit suicide.
No deadline has been set for the statue’s removal. The police said that ever since the statue’s installation, the police hotline had been inundated with phone calls about what, from a distance, appears to be someone about to commit suicide by jumping off the pedestrian bridge. A spokesperson told Autoweb that the police have been fighting to change the selected location of the CZK 680,000 statue since the summer, when they told the administrative authorities and sculptor Jan Hendrych that it posed a serious threat to passing drivers.
However, Chotíkov mayor Eva Hirschfeldová went ahead with plans to place the statue high up on the bridge where it could be seen from a distance. The stated reason for the selected location is that the given road is part of the Way of St. James, a popular pilgrimage route leading to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain, where the remains of the Apostle St. James are believed to be buried.
The mayor has remained firm that the municipality has done nothing wrong, explaining that the Road and Motorway Directorate had agreed to the statue’s placement and that Chotíkov received a building permit prior to the statue’s installation.
A spokesperson for the regional government told Novinky that after receiving a complaint from the police, they reviewed and subsequently canceled the statue’s permit because it was part of the pedestrian bridge itself, making the entire structure unapprovable.
