Funeral procession incidents.....yours???

How about not letting old people drive their own cars in funeral processions. While working for a funeral home (actually undertaker) in Columbus, OH the sister to the deceased insisted on driving her own car. She was slow and left behind on several occasssions but we finally made it to the cemetery. As we stopped the hearse next to the grave the sister hit the gas instead of the brake and rammed the hearse pretty good. If the hearse was a sideloader we would have been in pretty good shape and unloaded the deceased via the side door. However, it was an endloaded now requiring the help of the local fire department and a thing called "Jaws-of Life".

I'm sure each state's laws are different... Here in Phoenix we have what I consider to be Barney Fife wannabe's who during a procession just do everything possible to imitate the professional motor officers by riding the wrong way into oncoming traffic and then screaming into an intersection and jumping off the bikes to block traffic.

I enjoyed viewing one nut a few years ago in a pseudo Crown Vic come into an intersection, Jump out only to see his unit continue across the intersection into a light pole. Made my Day

Processions

Thanks guys....I guess almost 100% of the processions make it without incident. Many thanks again!
Kev

Kevin Lynch said:

Thanks guys....I guess almost 100% of the processions make it without incident. Many thanks again!
Kev

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Now days Kevin we will not do a procession without a police escort and they are expensive. We have to use two departments with each one charging $100 each.

alternate root to the cemetery

Believe it or not, one of the local funeral homes saw that their hearse was low on gas in root to the cemetery. Knowing that it would not make it to the cemetery they actually had to stop for gas. You might have guessed it, the whole procession passed through the gas station.

Kevin emailed me today asking about laws on processions here in Tennessee. heres my reply to him via email,

Hey Kevin,
There’s no law here that I know of saying that you can't go in procession on an Interstate. When I was in school in Nashville we used to get on the Interstate a lot. Where I'm at now I had a procession once that was on the Interstate for over an hour and another where we were on the Interstate for about 45 min. Around here the local Police and or Sheriffs Dept's still leads our processions. In Nashville there are about three different Escorts that lead the processions for about $250.00 as Metro Nashville Police do not lead funeral processions.

Processions

The State of Missouri requires all vehicles in a procession to have the headlights and four-way flashers on.

law or ettiquet

I don't know if it is the law or ettiquet but I know it is not acceptable to cut into a procession. I attended one funeral where this happened. As luck would have it I got the plate number and make of the offending car. I did not see the letter she got but understand she got a proper dressing down. All I could figure was her morning coffee had hit bottom and she had to get home if a hurry.
One observation here: I have seen it more in the south that oncoming cars will pull to the side of the road when a funeral procession goes by. Too many people seem to be in too much of a rush here in the north.
I have never been late for anything because I pulled to the side of the road until the procession went by.
Mike

florida processions

In Florida, if you cut into a procession, you will be pulled over and ticketed, as has happened in a few of my processions. If the police are leading our processions, they will do just about anything for you, including letting you take a lap at the speedway en route to the cemetery. I was driving the hearse and the widow in the limo was trying to get the driver to "lap" me. The police loved it-we even had a checkered flag!!

Got this today from an old friend...... and thought that it would be a great opener for your talk...

A hunter and his friend were sitting in a tall tower stand near Highway 481 in Maverick Co., TX, early one cold December morning. Suddenly, a huge buck walked out over the corn they had spread in the shrub with a tailgate feeder. Moving quickly, the hunter carefully aimed the Leupold scope on his .300 Win Mag at the unsuspecting buck. As he was about to squeeze the trigger on this deer of a lifetime, his friend alerted him to a funeral procession passing slowly down highway 481.

The hunter pulled away from the gunstock, set the rifle down, took off his hat, bowed his head, and then closed his eyes in prayer. His friend was stunned. 'Wow, that is the most thoughtful and touching thing I have ever seen you do. You are indeed the kindest man I have ever known, and I feel lucky to call you a friend.'

The hunter shrugged. 'Yeah, well, we were married for 35 years.'