Funerals in the south
April 26th, 2006 @ 4:17 pm
If you’re driving in the south and a funeral procession goes by, it’s proper etiquette to pull over out of respect and wait for it to pass. And I really didn’t get it and thought it was annoying until I was in a funeral procession and saw other people doing it for us. It’s really touching.
I mean, these people are going about their busy lives and are probably in a hurry and then they see a line of cars with their headlights on and a big black car at the front. Sometimes there is a police escort if it is an especially important person that has passed or a particularly long procession of cars. So they pull over for a minute or so to honor the dead and show respect to those that are grieving.
My question is this: Does this happen outside of the south? Does this happen in the midwest, the northwest, the east? Anybody know?
The Blog
April 27th, 2006 22:43
The pulling over to the on the other side of the road… I’ve never heard of.
I’m not sure about the south, but here we let the funeral persession go though red lights etc. Everyone stops to let the persession pass by with a slow and somber speed.
May 1st, 2006 20:30
Well I can tell you that it happens in Tennessee (which is still the South, but likes to put on airs sometimes).
Once, there was one for this State Trooper that was killed in the line of duty. The Procession was like 50 or more HP cars plus her family. Traffic on both sides of the INTERSTATE pulled over. I also pulled over for a few country music star funerals in Nashville.
September 24th, 2006 22:23
[...] I’ve posted before about funeral procession etiquette. Well, I made a huge etiquette blunder recently. [...]
July 21st, 2007 19:34
just stumbled on this from google, this happened in small towns where I’m from (So. IL), but in St. Louis, I’ve done it, but most people I talk to don’t and have never heard from it, and I think when I did it recently, I confused the people behind me.
December 6th, 2007 11:43
I’m from WV and have been in many funeral processions, as well as seen them pass. I was always taught to yield at lights/stop signs so that the procession could stay together. However, I now live in Cincinnati and the other day and a funeral procession was coming the opposite direction. I continued on, and a car in the procession swerved out of his lane and toward me, indicating that I was supposed to stop. I had never heard of this before, nor had I seen it done anywhere. Must be a southern thing.