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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think if you're behind a funeral you turn the music off in your car?

199 replies

freddiemisagreatshag · 02/05/2013 09:38

On the way to work this morning. Behind a funeral. Loads of people walking behind a hearse.

The bucko in front of me had loud thumps music blaring.

AIBU to think he/she should have turned it off?

OP posts:
LadyBeagleEyes · 02/05/2013 12:26

I've been to two family funerals in the last three years, both my sister and my mum's.
TBH, even though I was in the funeral car each time behind the hearse, I really didn't notice anything outside.
If someone was playing loud music, I'd have just thought that life is going on for somebody, and good luck to them.

WorrySighWorrySigh · 02/05/2013 12:37

Just a small thought that from the rear a funeral procession just looks like a queue of cars. Obviously, from the side it looks like what it is.

GladbagsGold · 02/05/2013 12:41

I always stop and bow my head for a funeral. And made a group of school children do the same thing when helping on a school trip. I'd be shocked at anyone not doing so!

I've been in 'The Car' for 2 funeral processions and everyone we passed was respectful, thankfully. It was surreal and we felt like we should wave or something!

sudaname · 02/05/2013 12:42

A local funeral director actually got knocked down last year whilst walking in front of the funeral procession by some idiot overtaking the hearse. he didn't account for anyone walking in front of it and cut back in too soon.
Luckily the funeral director is over six foot and a big strapping fella (plus complete with top hat so how the hell did he not see him Hmm)so managed to stay on his feet and escaped with very bad bruising to his right leg and hip.
On a lighter note it caused a huge amount of banter and frivolity when he arrived on a stretcher in a&e in full mourning dress and hat (obv. already established wasn't seriously injured). Alarmed some of the more poorly patients aswell to see an undertaker and one said to a nurse - 'l'm not that bad am l ?' Grin.
But agree OP - so rude. That is the last journey you make with them on this earth really and l think if anyone cut in between me and a loved one or interrupted it with loud music l would be tempted to get out of the car and drag them out of their car and use my grief as a defence in court ask them to pull over or turn their music down.

Original poster
freddiemisagreatshag · 02/05/2013 12:45

Worry - there was only the hearse and then loads of people walking behind. I didn't see a funeral car, and I was only about 5 or 6 cars behind them.

OP posts:
BeautifulBlondePineapple · 02/05/2013 12:51

YANBU if someone does it deliberately, but sometimes people just don't notice.

15 years ago I was driving on the motorway heading off on holiday with my sister. it was a lovely sunny day so we wound down the windows. The song Dreadlock Holiday came on the radio and we sang along loudly with much chair dancing and larking around.

We didn't realise we were in the middle of a funeral procession.

Felt truly awful and have never forgotten it.

FreedomOfTheTess · 02/05/2013 12:52

YADNBU. It's about common courtesy and respect.

Sadly that is lacking in a lot of people these days.

Jan49 · 02/05/2013 12:52

If someone's car radio is on so loud that other car drivers can hear it then it's too loud regardless of what else is going on around it. I'd be more concerned about the danger to the living from someone whose concentration is likely to be affected than about respect for the dead.

Catherine, I really don't think people arrange funerals taking into account the wish of complete strangers to avoid a few minutes delay in driving to work in the rush hour. Most people have other things on their minds when they arrange a funeral and probably arrange it around relatives who have to travel long distances or what time a minister is available. My local crematorium charges £300 less if the funeral is between 8 and 9.30am rather than later so cost could also be a factor.

Whenever I've attended a funeral, the journey there is just a time of sitting in a car on a difficult and sad occasion, not part of the service IYKWIM. I don't think I'd know or care what drivers around us were doing or if someone drove between our car and the hearse. I just think it's a car driving to a funeral, not something that people need to stop their normal daily activity for. It's not like walking into the funeral service and interrupting.

Jan49 · 02/05/2013 12:58

Just to add, I don't drive so there's no chance of me accidentally cutting in between one funeral car and another. I just don't think as a mourner I would ever care if someone else did.

Sallystyle · 02/05/2013 13:05

I was walking with my mum when I was younger and we passed a funeral car. No one was following, the hearse slowed down, opened the car door a little and wolf whistled at her.

She was shocked. The coffin was in there and it was down a quiet road with very little other traffic so I guess they thought they could get away with it Shock

I will never forget that day.

BlessedDespair · 02/05/2013 13:07

YABU to expect him to turn the music off
YANBU to expect him to turn it down enough so that no one outside the car can hear it

TheSmallClanger · 02/05/2013 13:09

Playing devil's advocate here: what if you were on your way to a job interview or other important, time-sensitive appointment, and had perhaps already been held up? I'm thinking more here of people crossing roads or not stopping than deliberately cutting in, and obviously, this has nothing to do with the music situation.

Ages ago, I spent some time living opposite a big crematorium. While I was always generally respectful of people coming in and out, if I stopped and bowed my head and whatnot every time I saw a hearse, I would never have got anything done.

BettySwollocksandaCrustyRack · 02/05/2013 13:12

YANBU - it is bloody disrespectful and there is no excuse for it.

1Catherine1 - are you having a fucking laugh - what a completely moronic thing to say. We are planning my 42 year old BIL's funeral - the timing of it is the least of our problems - we will take the time slot we are given you total and utter pratt!!

miffybun73 · 02/05/2013 13:12

YANBU

baileyb2 · 02/05/2013 13:14

Long time lurker here. At my mothers funeral in 1987, the procession drove past the place where she had worked for 25 years before retirement. All the staff and managers were stood outside to pay their respects. We were very touched.

StoicButStressed · 02/05/2013 13:15

Catherine1 Thu 02-May-13 09:47:15

"Hmm, I think YABU....I do however, think it is incredibly rude to plan a funeral during rush hour, I mean, the dead person is hardly going to mind if they have their funeral at 9am or 10:30am."

Are you on drugs Catherine? Or just taking the piss/having a 'laugh' or beyond not 'funny' 'joke' with your post?

As yes, of COURSE it is BEYOND "incredibly rude" (truly, WTF???) to have a funeral at XY time of day. And yeah, I'm sure the 'dead person' is 'hardly' going to mind as you are correct, they are DEAD. And that is why there is a procession of mourners behind them.

Tell me, have you ever buried a parent or a child 'Catherine'?

And no Freddie, YADNBU - unlike those who were, as someone upthread so succinctly put it, were 'dragged up' rather than raised. Angry

PetiteRaleuse · 02/05/2013 13:15

YANBU but I think playing music loud enough to be heard outside the car is disrespectful anyway. And dangerous.

sudaname · 02/05/2013 13:20

Yes we had to wait nearly three weeks to have my fathers funeral Sad and there is no way l would have turned down any time slot and not taken the first available one. Besides the reason for the long delays is because there is such a long waiting list these days (funerals are always going to be a growth industry obviously.) so if you don't take the 'rush hour' slot someone else will be given it otherwise there would be an even longer waiting time.

StoicButStressed · 02/05/2013 13:22

Jan49 'Just to add, I don't drive so there's no chance of me accidentally cutting in between one funeral car and another.' 'I just don't think as a mourner I would ever care if someone else did.'

Seriously and genuinely Jan? - if 'as a mourner' you were in the family car behind the hearse with (say..) your child's coffin in, you wouldn't give a toss if some selfish wanker crammed his/her car between you and your utterly focussed eyeline/last journey together with your child?

StoicButStressed · 02/05/2013 13:25

BettySwollocks - X post. But agree with every word.Angry

BettySwollocksandaCrustyRack · 02/05/2013 13:25

Stoic - some people just need to get their head out of their arses don't they and stop being so bloody selfish!!!

MrsDeVere · 02/05/2013 13:28

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

cozietoesie · 02/05/2013 13:34

Yes they do. I remember at my Gran's funeral, during the drive to the crematorium, my normally ultra capable Aunt spent the whole journey agonizing over whether she'd put baked potatoes in the oven at the right temperature. It was just displacement thoughts.

notso · 02/05/2013 13:37

There is a Church at the end of my road with a chippy opposite, there was a funeral the other day and while everyone was in the Church the undertakers were perched in the back of the hearse eating fish and chips. I though that was really disrespectful.

mrsjay · 02/05/2013 13:38

It doesn't matter if a mourner doesn't mind music they are grieving and really don't notice it is disrespectful to the whole situation to have music blaring or cutting up hearses when a funeral is in prosession