orys:
No, this is not me picking up Harry’s thread about Wide Load. I wanted to write it before I saw his
I just had a silly situation today: I was driving on a long, straight bit of the road and there were several (6 or 7) cars in front of me doing about 30. So as there was noone going from opposite direction and no junctions as far as I could see, I just overtook them all at once (it was legal to do 60 on that road). Only when overtaking I noticed that in front of the people carrier there are two stretched limos and funeral car.
At the end of that road there was roundabout and at this roundabout there was a cop car, who stopped, waited for me and pulled me over.
He said “Do you know why we stopped you?”
I truly answered “No, I don’t”.
He said “You overtook the funeral, you shouldn’t do it, it means disrespect to the mourners”.
I told “OK, but people die every day and live has to go on, I am in hurry”
He said “This is not an excuse. but this time I just give you warning since you haven’t broken any laws, you can go”
Me: “So what that warning is for if I haven’t broken any laws?”
He (jokingly) “Just go, or I will find some law for you if you want”
Me (recalling that I noticed one of my side lights is off but was too lazy to change it because it was raining) “ok”.
So, is it OK to overtake a funeral? (lets forgot that I never noticed that it was the funeral at the first place).
That copper may have been expressing his own opinion, but legally, it’s a load of bilgewater.
Providing it was safe to overtake of course.
Ey its a tricky one for me I can recall a time I was on the M1, I was in this situation, I was in a lorry the funneral was doing about 50mph I simply couldn’t find myself to overtake it (I’m a little superstituious) even though others were I followed it for 10 miles before it turned off, but there has been other situations where I had no choice but to overtake so I will if forced too but only then, some might think stupid idiot but I always think if I do then I’m 1 showing no respect and 2 I will proberly get bad luck each to there own though everyones got different beliefs
Hm. If passing the funeral 30 mph faster in the same direction is not showing the respect, what about passing the funeral in opposite direction? If I do 60, the sum of our speeds makes 90mph difference…
If you DO pass a funeral procession on a dual carriage way, just make sure you are not listening to something funny on the radio. Nothing worse than pulling up at traffic lights laughing your head off and glancing left to see a car full of weeping mourners glaring at you.
Squiddy:
If you DO pass a funeral procession on a dual carriage way, just make sure you are not listening to something funny on the radio. Nothing worse than pulling up at traffic lights laughing your head off and glancing left to see a car full of weeping mourners glaring at you.
Probably best to be careful if you are singing to yourself. Imagine you are giving it a chorus of ♪♫ Who ate all the pies? ♫♪ and unknown to you it’s a person with no small degree of heft in the coffin who suffered a myocardial infarction.
Squiddy:
If you DO pass a funeral procession on a dual carriage way, just make sure you are not listening to something funny on the radio. Nothing worse than pulling up at traffic lights laughing your head off and glancing left to see a car full of weeping mourners glaring at you.
Probably best to be careful if you are singing to yourself. Imagine you are giving it a chorus of ♪♫ Who ate all the pies? ♫♪ and unknown to you it’s a person with no small degree of heft in the coffin a myocardial infarction.
speaking of heft what happened to robk ? has he done one …
This was discussed on radio 2 recently and some of the things said by mourners
made me think about this differently.
One female caller said they were on the way to the funeral of her father , hearse in
front and limousine behind etc a white van came round a corner in the opposite direction
at this point you may be forgiven for expecting a disturbing story however the caller said the white van driver pulled over to the side of the road stood at the side of his vehicle and bowed his head, she silently mouthed a thank you to the driver. I have to admit I have never even given this a thought and then on a different subject I did pull over safely for 2 mins at 11 am on 11th November.
I would try to avoid breaking up a funeral cortege particularly with a commercial but I would consider overtaking on a dc or motorway.
If in doubt is it too much to ask that in this day we show a bit of respect to someone
and their loved ones on their final day.
orys:
He said “This is not an excuse. but this time I just give you warning since you haven’t broken any laws, you can go”
Me: “So what that warning is for if I haven’t broken any laws?”
He (jokingly) “Just go, or I will find some law for you if you want”
emmerson2:
That copper may have been expressing his own opinion, but legally, it’s a load of bilgewater.
Providing it was safe to overtake of course.
If they really wanted to find a law they could try to use tort of public/private nuicance, breach of the peace or the public order act but unless you were really causing a disturbance it would probably be tenuous.
I really can’t see what the big fuss is about overtaking processions on any sort of clearway, dual carraigeway or motorway as long as you can safely get past the whole procession in one go. In the towns and villiages where the mourners are and in the places it would be most likely to disturb the ceremony it’s usually illegal to overtake anyway.
So what if you were driving a white van laden with white lilies for a funeral and you were running late, right, and you came up behind a row of black cars, would you overtake to make sure the flowers got there before the mourners? Or what if you were delivering the propane gas to a crematorium and … never mind… clearly time to go to bed and sleep it off
Squiddy:
So what if you were driving a white van laden with white lilies for a funeral and you were running late, right, and you came up behind a row of black cars, would you overtake to make sure the flowers got there before the mourners? Or what if you were delivering the propane gas to a crematorium and … never mind… clearly time to go to bed and sleep it off
chester:
If lets say a cortege of 20+ cars were part of a procession on a motorway travelling in lane 1, how would you know it was a funeral cortege, whilst lanes 2 and 3 were clear? What folks do around the M56 in Elton who have skills in block paving, tarmac and ford transit flatbed repair, tend to do is have three ford transits in lane 1,2 and 3 traveling at the same speed behind the cortege thus blocking anyone overtaking.
I’ve seen ■■■■■■ doing this around Swindon; No respect needs to be shown towards them.
I’ve had a funeral cortege approach in the opposite direction to me and the car infront of me slammed it’s brakes on. WTF for? Same as a repat from Brize Norton a few weeks back; I’d just got to Witney Bypass when the cortege came into view; Cars infront hit their brakes (which I’d anticipated) and I moved over to pass them. Got the Nescafe wave off one for doing so. Why, I don’t know as it wasn’t as if I was overtaking or stopping people pay respects. (Which I’ve done at Eynsham when they want to come near the hearse)
recently i lost my father to cancer.on the day of the funeral we entered a roundabout with lots of space for the 6 cars to follow us but a guy in a 17 tonner thought u he come and jump in the middle of the convoy and sit there not giving any respect to us or friends at alland to top it off he nipped out in the middle of a main road and then dived back in just as a right turn was coming up cutting up the coffin car.this nearly turned into another bad day due to his bad driving.sadly it was a plain white truck with no number on it if it had id of would of called his depot later in the day to make a complaint.
my dad was a trucker for many years of his life doen lots of euro work and even midddle eat work to iran and iraq before the war there,i also myself always give way to funeral cars all the time.even when entering a roundabout and see them waiting to pull outi stop and let them out if anyone behind me does not liek it tough luck i say pay ur respects to the people as a lot have lost their lifes for good reasons defending our country as we are losing a lot of younf men these days.asu never know who they are and what they have doen for this country.
I really don’t have a problem overtaking them. I don’t understand how it’s disrespectful and I used to work for an undertaker many years ago. There are a couple of side car hearses and I hoping they put me in one of them and take me for a blast on the way, sod going slow get on with the job, sling me in the hole and go and have a p-ss up.
Slight change of tack, but this reminded me of a trip into the hills north of Lucca in Italy a good few years ago. Whilst pulling up a narrow bit of road with nowhere to pull over, I noticed a funeral procession looming up in my rear view mirror. With nowhere to get out of their way I just had to plod on as best as I could. The Hearse managed to get past and took off into the distance, with the courtage still stuck behind me. After a couple of miles I found a bit of a pull off and let the courtage past and I could see they were a bit miffed. Not a lot I could have done about and I thought I did the best I could. Not more than 2 miles further on, there they all were in a lay by, screaming and shouting at the hearse driver with the traditional Italian arm waving.
The bit I found funny was the fact that they were now behind me again… Doh!
I wanted to write it before I saw his
