Sign program offers comfort and awareness

May 6, 2025

By Danny Perez

HOUSTON — Losing a family member in a vehicle crash is incredibly devastating and the impacts last a lifetime. To provide some comfort, the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) offers families a way to honor loved ones through a memorial sign program.

The program is offered to motorcyclists killed by another driver's negligence and people killed in crashes caused by impaired driving. The crash must have occurred on the state highway system[AH1].

The program gives grieving families the chance to purchase and place the commemorative sign near the site of a crash. The sign includes the victim’s name and helps to raise awareness of preventable tragedies. TxDOT fabricates the sign and places it at the approved location.

Recently, the Memorial Sign Program helped a grief-stricken family find some comfort after losing their loved one to an impaired driver. Mya Sinceno-Martinez, 21, was killed by an alleged intoxicated driver in September, 2024 in Deer Park, Texas – just outside of Houston. The driver was going the wrong way down SH 225 when he collided with Mya’s vehicle.

“Mya is the epicenter of our family, our lifeline. She used to give us and still gives us her strength every day to fight and move forward. She brought us to laughter. She was a shoulder to lean on,” said Krystalle Wright, Mya’s mother.

Wright said that she learned about the memorial sign program from the police agency that worked her daughter’s crash. She thought the sign program was the perfect way to remember her daughter while also educating the public about having a plan and not drinking and driving.

“After I found out what happened to my daughter, I wanted others to remember her as well, and to know that a precious life was taken and that her memory and legacy should stay alive,” Wright said. “I remembered one time driving and I saw a sign of someone else who had passed away, and I was talking to the investigative officer that’s been helping me with the case about it. She helped me find the application.”

Wright filled out the application and paid the $350 fee to have the sign fabricated. A small ceremony was held in early March with family and friends, and it helped to relieve some of the pain and agony the family has endured the last six months.

“It’s important for me for people to know who she is and what she meant to us because now she’s our angel and not a day goes by that we don’t think about her and miss her. If I can remind someone to not be the person that shattered another family‘s life, then why not?” Wright said.

Wright added that she wants people to see Mya’s memorial sign and look her name up and see just how beautiful of a person she was to all who knew her.

For more information on the Memorial Sign Program go to txdot.gov..