My great-great uncle led a long full happy life, passing away last Wednesday, surrounded by loved ones at the ripe old age of 93. The funeral was not huge, nine of his brothers and sisters had died before him, and many of his friends had also gone before him. He served in the army in WWII, he had been very active in town politics his whole life, and had been a part time police officer for almost 40 years. Almost everyone in town knew him. This mornings service was a touching tribute to his life.
So, why is it that grown adults do not know how to drive in a funeral procession? The cemetary was just under ONE mile from the church. The police blocked off the road to let us out, and then the same cop proceeded to cut INTO the procession, leaving the last 15 cars in the parking lot. The fire cheif drove the wrong way around the block and cut into line. The jackassess in front of me couldn’t figure out to turn on their headlights or flashers and STAY IN LINE?!?! When I got to the cemetary, the police sargeant made a 12-point turn in the entrance and I had to wait in the street (along with the 5 cars behind me). I can’t remember the last time I went to a funeral where everyone actually arrived at the cemetary in line. You are in a funeral procession, you have the right-of-way. You do not need to stop at every side street and let that one fucking car out. They can wait. I think what frustrates me the most is these are not 17 year olds who just got their lisence. These are adults in their 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s. You’d think they’ve been to a few funerals.
I’m sorry to hear of your loss. I’m sorry to hear that you feel as though your Great Uncle’s funeral devolved into something it shouldn’t have been.
With all due respect - I think that the right-of-way for funeral goers is wrong. I know you’ve got custom and the law on your side. I just think that it’s dangerous. In a large part because it’s especially hard to signal that one is part of funeral parade, these days. The old standby of lights on during daylight no longer means anything with 10-15% of the drivers on the road using some form of daylight headlights for visibility. And using the hazards is even worse, since that’s meant to convey a warning about the vehicle in question - and becomes something other than the signal of a funeral parade.
Finally, the need for a procession to guide people to a cemetery is becoming less, too. With Mapquest and GPS it’s pretty easy to make useful directions available to anyone who shows to a funeral service.
I also question the legitimacy of funeral party right-of-way. I’m sorry that someone you know and possibly cared about is dead, but I don’t see why I should have to get stuck at an intersection for 15 minutes to show respect for someone I don’t know or care about. When I die, I don’t expect anybody to close the roads or change the traffic laws.
It’s possible that some of the people who stopped to let other cars merge into traffic were thinking “Hey, there’s 25 more cars behind me in this procession, and if I don’t stop, that poor sucker will be sitting there forever. I would hate to be him, so maybe I’ll be polite and let him in front of me. The dead guy won’t notice.”
My mother remembers a time when cars not involved in the procession pulled OFF the road, to pay their respects. She’s 75, so that wasn’t all that long ago.
You don’t have to know the deceased. Someone has passed on and is literally passing you by. Take a few minutes of your day, someday that person will be you.
(and I don’t mean that you will have or not have a funeral procession).
Where I live, for the most part, people still pull over for a funeral procession. With very few exceptions they aren’t all that long. Thirty cars would surprise me. The only time I got stuck in cross traffic by a funeral procession was for a police officers procession, who had died in the line of duty, killed by a drug dealer. I’d seen the route advertised and forgot about it. I stopped counting at 300 cars.
I hope when i die my relations don’t piss off random strangers by having a funeral procession. Sorry for your loss your great-great uncle sounds like a great person.
Without seeing the hearse, if there’s a gap in traffic, I’m taking it. High beams as default? That’s normal for idiot drivers, I just zone it out. Unless funeral processions at midnight are normal, in which case all my assumptions are wrong.
Meh. I worked at a mortuary and led a good many processions from the funeral home to the cemetery. Custom may be on your side WRT to having the right of way, but you may want to check out your state laws to find out whether or not the law is.
Our policy where I worked was to get the procession to the cemetery with a minimum of inconvenience to the rest of the world. Typically that meant moving at a pace consistent with traffic flow and obeying traffic law. The deceased doesn’t go to Hell because some of the people in the procession get caught at a light you know.
A good driver in the lead car who knows the local routes and lights can pace things so there’s not much confusion or delay.
I’m not sure if its a guide to the cemetery, but rather, a guide to the burial site within the cemetery. Perhaps my relations just get buried in big cemeteries, but everyone driving over, then recongregating at the burial site would be difficult. And probably lead to “why in the hell did your grandfather have to pick a burial site way back in these twisty passages. We get lost every time we come out here. My relatives had the common sense to be buried in the village church cemetery - you can see the hearse from the front gate!” (I have a set buried in such a cemetery, and it is quite nice - no chance of not making it to the gravesite).
Seems though that for the funerals I’ve been to the mourners who feel the need to go graveside is getting smaller. I didn’t even go graveside for my own grandmother (probably because her funeral was in January and we didn’t drop her into the ground until it thawed - I’m not sure if anyone even called to say “want to trek out to the burial” - I seem to recall my mother saying “we’ll probably bury Grandma in the next few weeks now the the ground has thawed, you don’t need to take the day off work.” (Sentimental folk - that side).
I think funeral processions are such a huge cultural tradition - one that exists in so many cultures. Ours - the motorized processional that seems as much as a final commute as a final journey - may be losing its meaning. And that is sad.
When you go to see a funeral
You’ll be glad to know that sooner
Or later those you love will do the same for you.
And you may have thought it tragic,
Not to think of other adjec
Tives to describe all the morning you will do.
To me, it’s part of living in a community. Then again, judging by a lot of the responses here, many people already live in places where not much sense of community exists.*
I’m not blaming anyone - that’s just the way it is.
I’m afraid that the only ones of those that I’d think of automatically as being for funerals would be the hearse and the flags. And the last time I was involved with a funeral, they only had some 10 flags, and something like 30 cars. And it was raining when the time came to go to the gravesite, so lights were on because of the state law. In those circumstances I can’t fault someone for drawing the wrong conclusion.
Those of us in the last half of the procession were stuck with the choice of fighting for the right of way, or deciding that only one person needed to get buried that day. It’s just too easy for the hearse to be lost to people coming upon the procession late.
Dangerosa, you make several good points. I’m not thrilled with the idea of losing the tradition, but I do feel strongly that it is becoming a hazard. In part because it is no longer a universal tradition.
We do that here in Tennessee, too. Some people ignore the custom but not many, so I figure they just don’t know. Not many processions here use the flags. I wish they would because I have cut into processions before when I wasn’t aware what was happening. :o
It also depends on what you mean by “community”. Until recently, I lived in NYC and I felt/feel very proud of being a New Yorker. I would pass funeral processions on the FDR highway probably twice a week during my 20-minute midday communte, which probably means there were several each day. Do you think it would improve this community to snarl the already bad traffic multiple times a day? Do you honestly think it’s more important to show a trivial amount of respect for someone who can no longer notice it than to make sure that tens of thousands of people can get about their lives without undue interference?
Yup. But also, I see the graveside stuff waning here. Myself, I’m going to be cremated, so no grave for me. My parents want to be cremated but their remains (I refuse to say “cremains”) will be interred with my two sisters (there are several plots) in a tiny Cape Cod graveyard that has meaning for my family.
As to traffic snarls on the crosstown expressway: yes. I’d rather be in a slowdown because of a funeral procession than one due to a gaper’s block to see the blood on the pavement after a bad accident (but I can see how it is frustrating).
Good ole Tom Lehrer–somehow, he never loses his currency.
Whether funeral processions have right of way is a matter of state law, which varies among the states. In New York, the only apparent privilege of being in a funeral procession is that you are exempt from portion of the “following too closely” law that requires caravans or motorcades to leave enough space to allow other vehicles in (V&TL 1129(c)).
Georgia (being the first state’s law I found in a quick search), on the other hand does give a funeral procession right of way (Ga Code 40-6-76.
When I went through Driver’s Ed in MA the funeral had right of way. Which is another one of those sections of the traffic code I saw being obeyed in the breach far more often than otherwise.
Fuji, I really am not arguing from convenience. I can fake patience with the best of 'em. It really is about safety for me. Because I don’t believe that all, or even most, drivers recognize the signs of a funeral procession any longer. The best way to get accident rates up is to have two different people seeing the same situation, and misinterpreting it so that they both believe they have the right of way - and both drivers are willing to fight to protect their rights.
