Transporting the Dead: A Booming but Lightly Regulated Industry

[cpzilliacus]

N.Y. Times: Transporting the Dead: A Booming but Lightly Regulated Industry

Even when the dead bodies Zachary Smeltz lifts for a living are hefty, he makes sure to handle even the burliest corpse in a gentle manner, masking any exertion. "Treat every case like that's your mom that you're transferring,"  is the motto Mr. Smeltz imparts on the staff of the mortuary transport business he owns that sends him all over New Jersey and Pennsylvania and to other locales, picking up bodies.

Mr. Smeltz is part of an unusual niche in the labor market: He is among a proliferating group of independent entrepreneurs capitalizing on the need to collect the dead from houses, hospitals, morgues and accident scenes. It is a little-known link in the chain of death-to-final-resting-place that is growing as places like funeral homes and hospices as well as governments cut their budgets and increasingly outsource the transport of the dead.

[Max Rockatansky]

We're in the transporting dead people business....

Stands to reason with the population boom the last half century that there would be an increased market for this kind of thing.  I've heard these guys can make some serious cash if they are reliable enough.

[english si]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Necropolis_Railway
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwpJ01nguoo

[kphoger]

I know a man who drove to México with a dead relative in the back seat, so he could be buried in México. A small bribe to the border guard and all was well. Apparently, this is more common than you might think.

[Stephane Dumas]

I can't imagine some casket in a taxi like in this prank done by Leon Schuster.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jvb9wnwFmqw

Edit: Could life one day imitating art with folks giving an eulogy like Clark Grisworld did for his aunt Edna in National Lampoon's Vacation?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aG0YMpzachA

[formulanone]

Guess what's getting loaded in the back of this plane?