Funeral processions

[jeffandnicole]

Say me, my wife, and my friend Liz are all moving to Las Vegas together. We take three separate cars because we need to move the cars, after all. I am the most comfortable navigating because I am a roadgeek, so the other two cars are following me.

Other than the distance between the start and end points, how is this any different than a funeral procession? What logical reason (i.e. not based on "feelings" or "tradition") is there that my procession doesn't get the same protections against being broken up by stoplights, other cars cutting in, etc. as a funeral procession?

Under that theory, the first two vehicles don't need to use turn signals, since the middle and last car know the car in front of them are turning.

[hotdogPi]

Under that theory, the first two vehicles don't need to use turn signals, since the middle and last car know the car in front of them are turning.

I disagree. Turn signals are also useful for cars in other direction, e.g. you can take a permissive left if the opposing car is also turning left.

[SEWIGuy]

There aren't a lot of funeral processions any longer.  As I said, I can't remember the last time I have seen one.  I don't think there is a chronic problem with them tying up traffic. So maybe they aren't really a problem?

[Rothman]

There aren't a lot of funeral processions any longer.  As I said, I can't remember the last time I have seen one.  I don't think there is a chronic problem with them tying up traffic. So maybe they aren't really a problem?

Live near a funeral home and your chances are much higher.  I used to just a few years ago and processions were common.  Where I live now, not so much.

[hotdogPi]

There aren't a lot of funeral processions any longer.  As I said, I can't remember the last time I have seen one.  I don't think there is a chronic problem with them tying up traffic. So maybe they aren't really a problem?

Live near a funeral home and your chances are much higher.  I used to just a few years ago and processions were common.  Where I live now, not so much.

I live in an area where there are a whole bunch of (small) funeral homes, such that there's usually one within a mile if you're in or near an area with businesses. I see maybe one every two years.

[Rothman]

There aren't a lot of funeral processions any longer.  As I said, I can't remember the last time I have seen one.  I don't think there is a chronic problem with them tying up traffic. So maybe they aren't really a problem?

Live near a funeral home and your chances are much higher.  I used to just a few years ago and processions were common.  Where I live now, not so much.

I live in an area where there are a whole bunch of (small) funeral homes, such that there's usually one within a mile if you're in or near an area with businesses. I see maybe one every two years.

Then that means you just live in a town of antisocial, lonely people that die alone.

[jeffandnicole]

Under that theory, the first two vehicles don't need to use turn signals, since the middle and last car know the car in front of them are turning.

I disagree. Turn signals are also useful for cars in other direction, e.g. you can take a permissive left if the opposing car is also turning left.

You should never make a left in front of another car indicating a right, in case they don't turn right. Liability will always, at minimum, fall on the car turning left.

Obviously people do, but there's a risk involved.

[jeffandnicole]

There aren't a lot of funeral processions any longer.  As I said, I can't remember the last time I have seen one.  I don't think there is a chronic problem with them tying up traffic. So maybe they aren't really a problem?

Are you out on the roads where funeral processions usually occur (between local funeral homes or churches and local cemeteries), and during a time when they would be doing the procession (weekdays or Saturdays, 11am-ish)? They're probably more common than you think, but they're going to be fairly localized in.their locations.

[SEWIGuy]

There aren't a lot of funeral processions any longer.  As I said, I can't remember the last time I have seen one.  I don't think there is a chronic problem with them tying up traffic. So maybe they aren't really a problem?

Live near a funeral home and your chances are much higher.  I used to just a few years ago and processions were common.  Where I live now, not so much.

I live in an area where there are a whole bunch of (small) funeral homes, such that there's usually one within a mile if you're in or near an area with businesses. I see maybe one every two years.

Then that means you just live in a town of antisocial, lonely people that die alone.

I think its mostly due to the changing nature of funerals.  A lot of people will simply go to the visitation, and even if they do stick around for the funeral itself, the burial is oftentimes family only. If there even is a burial because cremation has gotten so popular.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/22/health/cremation-trends-wellness/index.html

[1995hoo]

There's a funeral home just over half a mile from my house, but I really have no idea how busy things are there these days because I'm not normally out and about on weekdays, on Saturdays I tend to be slow to get moving (it's now just after 10:00 on Saturday and I'm lingering over my breakfast coffee while I make the grocery list and wait for the second load of laundry to finish), and Sunday is not a common day for funerals. So I never really see to what extent they're busy over there.

My wife has a funeral to attend this coming week (her longtime best friend died suddenly), but it's over in Maryland and there won't be a procession to a cemetery because burial is to come later, I guess because it was such a surprise. The decedent doesn't have a family plot or similar because her parents were buried in Arlington. 

[kalvado]

UD mortality rate is something like 1% annually, a bit higher in past few years.
So a 1 million area has about 10k funerals annually, or 30 daily. Assuming many are daytime and not overlapping with commute, and hopefully not traveling across entire urban area... Not too many to be seen on average

[US 89]

I never learned anything about funeral processions in driver's ed. Seemed entirely an old timer tradition to me.

[vdeane]

There aren't a lot of funeral processions any longer.  As I said, I can't remember the last time I have seen one.  I don't think there is a chronic problem with them tying up traffic. So maybe they aren't really a problem?

Live near a funeral home and your chances are much higher.  I used to just a few years ago and processions were common.  Where I live now, not so much.

I live in an area where there are a whole bunch of (small) funeral homes, such that there's usually one within a mile if you're in or near an area with businesses. I see maybe one every two years.

Then that means you just live in a town of antisocial, lonely people that die alone.

I think its mostly due to the changing nature of funerals.  A lot of people will simply go to the visitation, and even if they do stick around for the funeral itself, the burial is oftentimes family only. If there even is a burial because cremation has gotten so popular.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/22/health/cremation-trends-wellness/index.html

Yeah, this.  Especially if someone isn't religious or hasn't been to church in a few years, the funeral might consist of only the visitation.

[hbelkins]

Say me, my wife, and my friend Liz are all moving to Las Vegas together. We take three separate cars because we need to move the cars, after all. I am the most comfortable navigating because I am a roadgeek, so the other two cars are following me.

Other than the distance between the start and end points, how is this any different than a funeral procession? What logical reason (i.e. not based on "feelings" or "tradition") is there that my procession doesn't get the same protections against being broken up by stoplights, other cars cutting in, etc. as a funeral procession?

This sounds like any number of roadgeek meet caravans over the years, especially before the idea of printed maps/directions took hold. Didn't the St. Louis meet of 2015 become unrecoverably separated and different groups went different places?



The whole concept of funerals has changed a lot over the past three years, especially during the time when restrictions were still in place due to that certain virus. There weren't funerals or processions then, really. Only a handful of people were in attendance, they probably could all fit into one or two vehicles, and they probably knew where the cemetery was.

In November, my father-in-law died. We had a private service. The only vehicles that left the funeral home were the hearse and my wife's car. We had a two-car funeral procession with no police escort, and the cemetery was only a couple of miles from the funeral home, so we didn't have a police escort. Still, the hearse had its blinkers on and people pulled over as it approached.

In December, one of my uncles died. The funeral was in Shepherdsville, and the cemetery between Shepherdsville and Louisville. There was a fairly lengthy procession, and my brother was driving and we followed along because we really didn't know where the cemetery was. (I had only been there twice before in my life; when an uncle died in the early 1970s and I have no memory of that, and when my aunt, his wife, died a few years ago.) I don't really remember how many oncoming vehicles stopped; I know several did. Most of the procession was along four-lane KY 61 and a number of vehicles passed the procession as we were only going about 50 mph.

[bulldog1979]

Funerary rites are becoming much simpler or even dispensed with.

In 1983, my paternal step-grandfather died. He had several days of visitations followed by a funeral on a separate day. Twenty years later, my paternal grandma only had one visitation the night before the funeral and a luncheon after. (She died on New Year's Day, and our cemetery doesn't do winter burials, so no graveside service.)

My maternal grandparents both requested no funeral in April 2012 and February 2020. We had a graveside committal service for him with military honors as he was a WW II veteran, but no funeral in a church or funeral home.

One popular option now seems to be holding visitation at the church before the funeral, allowing people to pay respects to the family and then take a seat for the service or head out. My cousin's grandma's family did that, but she did have a procession and graveside service followed by a luncheon back at the church.

[kphoger]

Say me, my wife, and my friend Liz are all moving to Las Vegas together. We take three separate cars because we need to move the cars, after all. I am the most comfortable navigating because I am a roadgeek, so the other two cars are following me.

Other than the distance between the start and end points, how is this any different than a funeral procession? What logical reason (i.e. not based on "feelings" or "tradition") is there that my procession doesn't get the same protections against being broken up by stoplights, other cars cutting in, etc. as a funeral procession?

1.  I've driven a couple of long-distance trips with three vehicles:  one was 700 miles each way, and the other was 1100 miles each way and crossed into Mexico.  Also, this past year, I was in a convoy of three vehicles that went from here to Boulder (CO) and back, which meant going right through Denver, although I wasn't one of the drivers.  Let me tell you, it's a LOT easier to lose a vehicle when there are three of them, compared to just two of them.  Cell phones or walkie-talkies come in much handier when there are more than two vehicles.  I've been part of one roadmeet, here in Wichita.  We managed to stay together fairly well, but we were also a bunch of roadgeeks, so I suspect we were above average at navigation.

2.  There's no "logical" reason other than tradition that a funeral procession should be able to get a police escort but a well-attended roadmeet shouldn't.  But what are you implying?  That the escorts should be abolished just because you don't like the tradition?  That's kind of a dumb reason.  Traditions are part of our culture.

[SEWIGuy]

With regards to #2, I think funeral processions get police escorts simply because they are out of the ordinary. And because they are out of the ordinary, I don't have a problem with them getting special treatment that a couple of people driving somewhere don't get.

[hotdogPi]

2.  There's no "logical" reason other than tradition that a funeral procession should be able to get a police escort but a well-attended roadmeet shouldn't.  But what are you implying?  That the escorts should be abolished just because you don't like the tradition?  That's kind of a dumb reason.  Traditions are part of our culture.

Because it disrupts the flow of traffic. At least with emergency vehicles, anyone going in the same direction can go at a traffic signal, and if it's an ambulance or fire truck rather than a police car, it's essential. From my experience, most emergency vehicles with lights on are ambulances.

[SEWIGuy]

A lot of things "disrupt the flow of traffic."  My city closes streets a couple times a year for a parade and I have to alter my route occasionally. Is it inconvenient? Sure. But do I complain? No. It's fine.

Funeral processions are a much more rare occurrence and MUCH less disruptive.

[webny99]

This is a bit of a tangent, but semi-related, and not worth starting a new thread for... Is it legal to pass an ambulance on active duty with their lights flashing?

The other night, one entered the highway about 1/2 mile front of me. I eventually noticed that it was not getting any closer or further away - it remained about 1/2 mile away. This went on for about 10 miles or so, after which I sped up to about 80 mph and grew a bit closer. By this time, the flashing lights were getting rather annoying and beginning to play tricks on my eyes, so when the highway widened from two lanes to three, I sped up a bit more and eventually got within a few hundred feet.

At that point, I decided there was no harm in trying to go past. The ambulance was in the left lane, so I stayed in the right lane with the empty center lane between us. I hadn't heard any noise at all until that point, but as soon as I pulled even with the ambulance, I started to hear the sirens. I wasn't sure if the ambulance was directing their sirens at me to stop me from passing, or if I just couldn't hear the sirens until then because of how they're positioned. In any case, I backed off a little bit and resumed a following distance of a few hundred feet. A minute or so later, a car approached and went past doing at least 85 mph (which is not uncommon on this stretch of highway), then moved in front of me and went whizzing past the ambulance. A few minutes later, two more cars did the same thing. I was pretty sure I heard sirens again, but only faintly, so I continued to wonder whether the ambulance was using them intermittently or if I was just hearing them intermittently. A few miles later, I exited while the ambulance continued on its journey, leaving me to wonder if I could have legally gone past.

[kphoger]

I never know what to do when there's an ambulance with its lights and sirens coming up in the left lane of a freeway.  Keep going in the right lane as usual?  Stop on the shoulder?  Some half-baked middle ground between the two?

[kalvado]

I never know what to do when there's an ambulance with its lights and sirens coming up in the left lane of a freeway.  Keep going in the right lane as usual?  Stop on the shoulder?  Some half-baked middle ground between the two?

What I typically see  over here is that ambulances on highway don't run sirens when traveling with the traffic. Legally, you don't have to pull over in this case. That just works, if ambulance travels with traffic, speed limit +10-15, people tend to leave some room for ambulance  without drama.
What is irritating though, is an ambulance going at speed limit with all those bells and whistles.

[hbelkins]

This is a bit of a tangent, but semi-related, and not worth starting a new thread for... Is it legal to pass an ambulance on active duty with their lights flashing?

IANAL, but my educated opinion would be that if you are exceeding the speed limit, then no, it's not legal. Not the act of passing the ambulance in and of itself, but breaking the speed limit.

Lights being in operation on an ambulance gives that vehicle the right to exceed the speed limit. It doesn't give you the right to exceed the speed limit in passing it.

It's legal to pass a cop if the cop is doing less than the speed limit. I've done it before, without issue.

When I was commuting on I-64 to Frankfort years ago, I would occasionally fall into a platoon of traffic that was behind a Kentucky state trooper doing the speed limit. No one wanted to tempt fate by passing him. It's unusual to see a cop driving the speed limit; even if they're not running lights and/or sirens, they typically drive much faster than the speed limit and camp out in the left lane while doing so.

[kphoger]

IANAL, but my educated opinion would be that if you are exceeding the speed limit, then no, it's not legal. Not the act of passing the ambulance in and of itself, but breaking the speed limit.

Lights being in operation on an ambulance gives that vehicle the right to exceed the speed limit. It doesn't give you the right to exceed the speed limit in passing it.

It's legal to pass a cop if the cop is doing less than the speed limit. I've done it before, without issue.

It's been some time since I've looked at the laws, but isn't it generally not enough for an emergency vehicle to have flashing lights on?  Don't they also have to be using an audible siren and be responding to an actual call?

(Note that cops, unlike ambulance and fire truck drivers, can generally break the speed limit while engaging in "official duties" or some vague condition like that, which basically means they can do so whenever they want.)

[Scott5114]

2.  There's no "logical" reason other than tradition that a funeral procession should be able to get a police escort but a well-attended roadmeet shouldn't.  But what are you implying?  That the escorts should be abolished just because you don't like the tradition?  That's kind of a dumb reason.  Traditions are part of our culture.

I'm implying that either any convoy should be able to get all of the same protections a funeral convoy does, or no convoy should get them. It shouldn't matter what the purpose of the convoy is.

I wonder how illegal it would be to run a business where people pay you to drive a hearse around so their convoy can be a funeral procession.