Is Pulling Over For Funeral Processions A Dying Tradition?
It’s a common enough sight: a police cruiser with its lights flashing to clear the road ahead for a hearse and the chain of cars behind it.
What’s less understood is the appropriate response from the motorists approaching the funeral procession.
Southern tradition holds that it’s respectful to pull over and allow the cortege to pass – regardless of what side of the road a motorist is on. But in this age of heavier traffic on wider roads, is it time to let the custom die in the interest of safety?
The answer is mixed.
There’s the one side that completely ignores the procession altogether. As folks who work in local funeral homes can tell you, respect for the dead has declined.
“It’s a sign of the time,” said Doug McCaul, funeral director and owner of Pinecrest Funeral Chapels. “It’s sad, it really is. But that’s what we have to live with.”
McCaul recalls two instances when his hearse was nearly broadsided by distracted drivers. But those are the exceptions, not the rule, he said.
Others interviewed gave similar accounts of motorists cutting into the procession, honking horns and ignoring traffic directions by deputies.
“It’s not like the old days,” said Ellen Hartmann, who works at the Brewer and Sons chapel on Mariner Boulevard. Occasionally, she’ll help direct traffic and it’s not uncommon to hear irritated drivers honking their horns, she said.
For Hartmann, it boils down to respect. People “would have a heart attack” if motorists were whizzing by their family, she said.
Mark Downing, owner of Downing Funeral Home, says motorists will take advantage of any gaps in the procession to cut across lanes. Typically there are no more than 10 or 12 cars in the procession, so Downing doesn’t see what the rush is about.
“It upsets the family that there’s no respect,” he said.
Downing usually hires a minimum of two deputies to escort the cortege for safety reasons.
There are exceptions. Generally, the older generations will pull over and occasionally put their hands over their hearts. McCaul has noticed that rock truck drivers typically pull over and line workers for the Withlacoochee River Electric Cooperative remove their hats or helmets as a funeral procession passes by.
In Florida, yielding to a funeral procession is not only considered courtesy, but the law. State statutes say a funeral procession has the privilege to pass through intersections regardless of a traffic light’s color or stop sign. It further states that all motorists and pedestrians will yield the right of way to a funeral procession.
It’s not a complete carte blanche. Lead vehicles must have the proper lights and markings to distinguish that it is a funeral procession. Cars and trucks in the cortege have to turn on their lights and yield to approaching emergency vehicles.
Ronda Rich, an 11th generation southerner and author of “What Southern Women Know (That Every Woman Should),” believes pulling over for a funeral procession is a firm tradition in the former Confederacy.
Rich never witnessed the act when she lived outside the South, for one. And there have been times when she has had to explain the tradition to “outraged” Northerners who visit her Georgia town.
“They think it’s a ridiculous practice,” she said, but she explains “that Southerners have always had a respect for death.”
From a personal standpoint, Rich has lost her mother and brother this year and seeing motorists take a minute to pull over eased her sorrow. Motorists on major interstates and thoroughfares can get a pass because it can be dangerous to pull over.
But on normal roads and through small towns, “it is still possible and there really is no safety issue,” she said.
Reporter Kyle Martin can be reached at 352-544-5271 or [email protected].
