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AIBU?

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Original poster

Just been shouted out by funeral party...

717 replies

Pinklady1982 · 23/08/2019 13:05

Aibu to be feeling really upset by this? I was just driving along and a funeral car pulled out slowly from a turning. They had about 10 cars behind it which were possibly all part of the party, so I slowed down and let a load of cars through. Now this was a residential road and I could see some other cars had joined the back of the queue. I started easing forward a bit as if I kept waiting there letting all the cars out I would be there ages and needed to get home, also I wasn't to know if they were all part of the funeral. I had right of way as they were in a side turning, but sat there patiently for a while. Well this lady then rolls down her window and starts shouting at me! Saying they are part of the funeral party and could I not see that. I explained that I had let about 10 cars go and wasn't to know who was part of the party and who wasn't. She just shouted at me to get out of the way very loudly and rudely and pulled out. I just put my window up and pulled over as I felt a bit shaken. I'm feeling a bit vulnerable anyway at the moment and I hate confrontation. I know that at these times emotions will be heightened, but was I really in the wrong here? They were going to then be pulling out onto a main road where I'm sure they would be seperated by other cars, so you can't all expect to stay together surely?

OP posts:
OpheliaTodd · 27/08/2019 01:44

When my mum died the procession drove at normal speed until it got into the crem and then the chap in the hat got out and walked in front for the last bit.

Ridiculous to make everyone else on the road creep along.

HiJenny35 · 27/08/2019 01:53

Common practice to walk in front of the cars and travel at a slow speed trough the roads around where the person lived/worked and at the entrance to the burial site.
You should have waited.

CalishataFolkart · 27/08/2019 02:14

@SaraNade

Thank you! I read and re-read the thread having been told RTFT in response to my question.

The answer wasn’t there despite the insistence that it was and that I just needed to RTFT to find it.

Gaslighting.

TomPinch · 27/08/2019 03:17

@mathanxiety

I admire the American culture of public politeness and formality, including the respect shown toward funeral processions in cars by making way for them.

However, despite what you say, I question whether the same would really be practical in the UK. You say that the US has built-up areas like the UK and so it does. However, with the exception of a very few areas, the US has wider roads, easier traffic flow, less congestion, more rational road planning, and all manner of other things that follow on from American towns and cities not being jammed in wherever they will fit along with town centres that are designed specifically for motor cars.

mathanxiety · 27/08/2019 06:33

It's all down to attitude I'm afraid, TomPinch.

Not all cities are brand spanking new and not all have rational road systems. The close-in suburbs of major cities east of the Mississippi and some big cities further west too can be hellish places to drive just because of sheer volume of traffic. A lot of cemeteries are located in those belts because they used to be the far flung outskirts of cities where land was cheap.

You can see the attitude here and it's sad. People are clinging to traffic laws as justification for personal callousness, and refusing to give an inch to acknowledge the solemnity of the occasion they have stumbled upon.

Hirsutefirs · 27/08/2019 06:43

Round here you can pay to get traffic priority at lights.

The “dirty look” system of excluding those unspeakable motoring non-mourners is cheaper, but doesn’t actually work.

Geschwister4 · 27/08/2019 06:45

You can see the attitude here and it's sad. People are clinging to traffic laws as justification for personal callousness,

I personally think that you remarking that cancer sufferers on their way to hospital should plan more time for their journeys in case they get held up by a funeral procession was one of the most callous comments on the whole thread.

iklboo · 27/08/2019 07:26

The OP was in no way callous. It's not like she rear ended the hearse and tried to force it off the road. And yes, in the U.K. we have to abide by traffic laws. The clue is in the name.

TomPinch · 27/08/2019 07:50

Mississippi and some big cities further west too can be hellish places to drive just because of sheer volume of traffic

You see, while I haven't done a grand tour of those places, by memory of one inner suburb where I did spend some time wasn't nearly as cramped as the average UK city. Most of the main roads had two lanes each way, for example.

4cats2kids · 27/08/2019 08:28

Talking of practicality, how do you get such a long procession along a country lane? If you met a car as they came around a blind corner on a single track road, surely it would not be safe for them to reverse back around it?

Lifecraft · 27/08/2019 10:25

I would have shouted "it'll be your funeral soon if you don't shut your fat cakehole". But I'm not the most sensitive of souls

Are there really cunts people who would actually say such a thing (3rd poster in) or are they merely keyboard warriors?

Surely a better question would be "are there really cunts who, whilst travelling in a funeral procession, would scream abuse out of their car window at another motorist?"

The fact that you didn't ask that question makes me wonder if you might be one of them?

SaraNade · 27/08/2019 11:34

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Butchyrestingface · 27/08/2019 16:37

Surely a better question would be "are there really cunts who, whilst travelling in a funeral procession, would scream abuse out of their car window at another motorist?"

Were I another mourner within earshot, I’d likely to be far more affected by some gobshite in the procession running their mouth off, then I would by the procession being broken up. 🤷‍♀️

Twillow · 27/08/2019 19:33

OP had right of way. Which means she doesn't need to give a damn about what they want.

This thread is astonishing, both in its length and strength of feeling over such a minor event, and its inhumanity in response.

Can ABSOLUTELY picture posters with opinions similar to the above at a funeral of one of their own nearest and dearest, letting other road users cut in with a cheery wave Hmm

Contraceptionismyfriend · 27/08/2019 19:58

@Twillow can you elaborate further?
As nobody can cut in when they have the right of way!

I've been to far to many funerals in the past 5 years. And when waiting to depart i do exactly as I do whenever I drive. Sit and wait for a safe and appropriate time to move.

Butchyrestingface · 27/08/2019 20:03

Can ABSOLUTELY picture posters with opinions similar to the above at a funeral of one of their own nearest and dearest, letting other road users cut in with a cheery wave hmm

I've never given anyone cutting in a "cheery wave" because I genuinely have never even noticed, far less cared, when I was a bereaved relative in a funeral procession.

Bigger fish to fry at that precise moment in time, I'm afraid.

Suzypoo10 · 27/08/2019 20:08

At my dad’a funeral, everyone in the procession tied purple ribbons to the wing mirrors of their cars, all the locals then knew it was a funeral procession and gave way so that the whole procession could keep together. This was in Darlington and I have have never seen this anywhere else.

DappledThings · 27/08/2019 20:53

everyone in the procession tied purple ribbons to the wing mirrors of their cars, all the locals then knew it was a funeral procession and gave way so that the whole procession could keep together

See with that visual cue I would probably guess they were all cars travelling to the same funeral but it still wouldn't cross my mind to let every one of them out of a side road because until this thread I had never heard of everyone being in one procession being a thing.

isabellerossignol · 27/08/2019 20:59

until this thread I had never heard of everyone being in one procession being a thing.

Nor had I. It's all walking behind the coffin here, and then further up the road it will be loaded into the hearse and people will walk behind that for a bit. Then people disperse and the hearse moves off at a more normal speed. If the mourners want to go to the graveside they go back and share lifts and arrive there as and when lifts and traffic allow.

mathanxiety · 29/08/2019 08:28

Weirdly, SaraNade, most people think the deference toward and respect for funeral processions and in fact the politeness of Americans in general, are almost the last good things left to admire in America.

And I am Irish, btw.

mathanxiety · 29/08/2019 08:50

You see, while I haven't done a grand tour of those places, by memory of one inner suburb where I did spend some time wasn't nearly as cramped as the average UK city. Most of the main roads had two lanes each way, for example.

I don't think you can judge driving conditions in one third of a country based on experience of one inner suburb.

Not all funeral processions are going to travel on four lane arterial roads either.

mathanxiety · 29/08/2019 08:53

And what would you consider 'the average UK city'?

A quick google tells me that the suburb where I live has a population density of just over 11,000 per square mile.

SaraNade · 29/08/2019 09:47

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SaraNade · 29/08/2019 09:47

Sorry, the above was for mathanxiety .

Geschwister4 · 29/08/2019 17:55

Can ABSOLUTELY picture posters with opinions similar to the above at a funeral of one of their own nearest and dearest, letting other road users cut in with a cheery wave hmm

Quite few posters have said that they would neither notice nor care!