AIBU to overtake a hearse?

[confusedabouthormones]

So today on the way home from school I had just pulled onto a dual carriageway and there was a hearse with some cars behind it. They were going to a near by crematorium. I pulled into the outside lane and drove past it.

My mother was in the car and she had a right go at me for being disrespectful and how she was embarrassed to be in my car. When I looked in my mirror no one else had passed the hearse.

Is this a thing? In my 30 odd years driving I've never heard this.

Was I being unreasonable to pass the hearse?

I was in a funeral procession on Friday and it was clear we were all slowly following the hearse. Someone did exactly that and we all found it very very disrespectful. We all hoped that he felt deep deep shame when we all turned into the crem.
So yes very disrespectful.

Duel carriage way? I think it’s fine. Being the douche who overtook me and slotted himself between my car and the hearse on the way to my FILs cremation while I’d got my MIL in the car? Not okay.

On a due carriageway it's fine. No-one is expected to drive at 30 for miles if they are not part of the cortege.

I have done this and will do so again no doubt.

All the PPs who have said it's fine have all acknowledged it's because it was a second lane. None of those insisting it's terrible have acknowledged that at all and that it's different from overtaking on a single lane road.

Have any of the "you're awful and disrespectful" people actually noticed she was talking about a second lane. Does that really not change your opinion and do you really think all traffic should stay slowly in one lane of a multi-lane road just because there's a hearse ahead?

From about 10 cars you wouldn't be able to see why lane 2 is empty anyway so you'd naturally pull in to it.

It was fine until you starting spinning donuts across the graveyard.

Overtaking a hearse on a dual carriage way is absolutely fine.

I'd have to be going somewhere with an urgent deadline to do it on a normal road though.

Yes. It is just simply not done.

I live near a crematorium, it's just off a congested 50 mph 2-lane section of the motorway. Most funerals cars have to use the motorway, overtaking is normal or there would be traffic chaos.

Back in the day it was horses and carts and when cars existed there was nowhere near the volume that there is now. Roads have been expanded to accommodate this. Overtaking on a dual carriageway takes nothing from mourners, it doesn't impact their journey.

I don't think anybody is suggesting that they should or would overtake on a single lane road, however tempting. I wouldn't do it, not so much for convention but for safety because you have no idea how long the line is that your trailing behind.

To be honest, I've been to both parents' funerals and two grand parents and I couldn't have given a stuff whether anyone overtook us even on a normal road.

Exactly. You're too upset to care what anyone else is doing

Would it have killed you
to have waited and shown a little thought and respect for a family who have lost someone?
YABU. I would have waited. I’m from Ireland and a funeral procession can hold up traffic because no one wants to zoom past a hearse, which is how it should be.

I expect mourners have more things to worry about other than taking note of who did and didn't overtake them...
I wouldn't even consider it a thing. I guess, I wasn't issued with a hearse etiquette manual when I crossed the UK border 25 years ago and I have never been a passenger of a hearse or one of the cars in the funeral procession. Surely, the only thing I would care about in this situation is my loved one's passing and not what everyone else is doing on the road.

On a normal road no, but I wouldn’t expect people to crawl along behind on a dual carriageway or motorway.

Both my grandmothers’ funerals required using a motorway and dual carriageway - for one of them we were on a motorway for a good 45 minutes and then another half an hour on a dual carriageway. It would have been ridiculous to expect people not to overtake.

I'm booked in for direct cremation so that's a private ambulance presumably? I would prefer to be zoomed to the crematorium personally.

I think the funeral business is changing.

Fine to overtake on a dual carriageway. Some crematorium are off dual carriageways.

Dual carriageway with multiple lanes absolutely fine. Single lane road where you might have to cut into the funeral procession if a car comes the other way, absolutely not.

OK on a dual carriageway, maybe at a slower speed than usual.

Not ok to sound your horn or wave as you go past

Goodness people on here do love to scold.

After all nothing says respect for death like a massive traffic backlog on a dual carriageway.

You never over take on a normal road. At a roundabout, you make sure all the procession can stay together by giving way and being kind to the funeral party.

On a dual carriageway though? I've seen hearses over taken many times. I've been in a funeral party seeing cars over take. It isn't an issue in that circumstance. Surprised so many people think an entire dual carriageway's worth of traffic should sit behind a funeral party. People have lives and the road has rules to follow.

When we were on the way to my father's funeral, a couple of cars overtook the one we were in so that they were between us and the hearse.

They then nipped out smartish and overtook the hearse. I can't say I blame them, really!

You are fine on a dual carriagway. On the way to the crematorium the hearse carrying my late husband was overtaking traffic on the inside lane that was just bimbling along!!

I don't think it's wrong on a dual carriageway at all. They could be going for miles and you'd have tailbacks the same if everyone did the same on dual carriageways or motorways blocking the joining roads too. On a residential street or inner city then yes wait and drive behind.. Because that's just disrespectful otherwise.

On a dual carriageway where there is no chance you will need to pull in between cars in the procession it's absolutely fine.

On a dual carriageway it is absolutely fine, you did nothing wrong.