AIBU to overtake a hearse?

On a dual carriageway, if I hadn't noticed the hearse I would have bowed my head in respect on overtaking. I would never overtake a hearse intentionally.

It's fine on a dual carriageway. It can't be safe to drive that slowly on a dual carriageway or motorway anyway!

Only the second?

its seen as disrespectful

I also let funeral cars into junctions, the hearse and the funeral party and if I am on foot I normally stop and bow my head - it may just be an age thing

We were told by our funeral director to all have our lights on so it was clear who was following to traffic waiting at junctions and roundabouts. Didn't make a blind bit of difference and we still ended up with a kid in a Nissan micra in the cortege!

It's fine to pass on a dual carriageway.

Oh a dual carriage way, of course you can. Many crematoriums are situated on busy stretches of road and the dual carriage has been put in to easy traffic flow.

Single lane Road, a big no no.

But the hearse wouldn't be racing, would it? It would be going its normal slow pace and the vehicle passing would be gone and out of its way.

The thing is, we all lose people and we all have different views on this topic. Different cultures are fascinating though.

Well surely the hearse driver is ahead of the deceased so they’d get the bad luck.

I pass them, got places to be.

We told the guy to put the foot down on the motorway on the way to my grans funeral as people actually were sitting behind 😀

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I like the old school approach of acknowledging someone else's funeral procession and adjusting your manners around it.
It gives a community feel, like, one of our number has fallen.
When I was a kid if a hearse went by most people on the pavement would stop turn to face the hearse with lowered head and take their hat off... Don't see that very often now.
It was good, felt like there was an awareness of other people and that we all touch each others lives.

But that has to be balanced with some pragmatism in cases where it would gridlock the motorway if we all crawled for 5 miles... So respectful, balanced with what's practically sensible would be a fair choice I think

And if it was a mistake?

Things happen. If all that matters to you is whether a stranger is "respectful" then 🤷🏼‍♀️

I've been in a funeral procession before where the procession was split up by someone not being considerate- that was rude. But all of the people in the outside lane going about their business were fine.

In my culture you wouldn't see someone overtake - as it is racing someone to their grave, very bad luck indeed - for you and anyone else in your car

That's a really good point! I'd be that one whizzing past in the nice clear lane while everyone else 'showed respect' to a random stranger.

A dear friend of mine was taken to the funeral on the back of a pony cart, he wanted it that way.

Insane for anyone to crawl behind a hearse on a dual carriageway, and potentially dangerous. I'm sure the family of the deceased don't want to be part of causing an accident. Also frankly I'm sure they have more important things to think about than whether strangers do or don't pass them.

On a dual carriageway it is fine. I would always slow down a bit if I could and pull slightly across to the right hand side so you are a little further away from the car. But where I live we don't have a crematorium within 20 miles so it isn't reasonable to expect traffic to crawl along our bypass every time. We have an average of one person a day going from our region to the main local crematorium.

On a dual carriageway it's fine.

Honestly if you were overtaking random traffic in the other lane, how would you know there was a hearse at the front anyway rather than a tractor or someone being towed or whatever?

If all of the nutty mumsnetters on this thread who would join someone's funeral procession - how would the rest of us know it was one anyway? The hearse would be miles ahead. You'd just get people speeding along the clear lane and it would be worse when they suddenly realized there was a hearse ahead. Better that people pass slow and wide.
Agree about not overtaking on a single road.

Yes, I’ve seen a couple this week too, always annoying.

We had to travel quite a distance in the hearse for a parent, I wouldn't have expected nor thought it fair at all to expect all traffic to have waited on the dual carriageway. Some crematoriums are near one, people living nearby wouldn't be able to wait every day for every hearae surely!?! On the local roads it is respectful, and it was lovely how many people stood still for the car, we appreciated that.

It also used to be much clearer who was part of the funeral procession with the funereal-type cars booked as many as needed. Now people are using their own cars, probably due to cost, but who on earth would know that they were part of the cortege?

Some funeral places used to loan out flags to go on cars; now that is helpful.