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?

After there's a couple of cars behind the hearse, you'd have no idea it was a hearse because you wouldn't be able to see - so of course any driver would overtake on a dual carriageway.

If I was one or two cars behind then I would probably not overtake.

Yes it is disrespectful.

Would procession really expect normal road rules not to apply such as Junctions, give way and roundabouts?

Traditionally they don't We were taught to let the procession past by on a roundabout or junction.

But say there's 10 cars in a procession - how do you know? Do you all just stop at roundabouts and risk an accident? Life goes on

Yes it's very disrespectful. It happened at my brother's funeral recently and it meant some of the cars that were following the hearse were split off from the main funeral party. They were very upset.

OP, I'm sorry to say but there may be consequences
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/gaelic-games/67612202

I'm cringing as I type this but I (unknowingly) did this years ago. difficult to explain but there was a roundabout on a dual carriageway with a stream of cars moving across the roundabout and I was merging from a different road onto the roundabout and I merged into this stream of cars (as you normally would). They were all going well under the speed limit for the dual carriageway so I pulled out into the right hand lane and gradually sped up to the speed limit and as a i did this, I overtook the hearse! 😩 I must have been about 90 cars back from the hearse when I joined the dual carriageway and hadn't seen the hearse from my view point.

I was utterly MORTIFIED. I still want to cry about it and this was about 20 years ago.

I subsequently found out from the local rag that the funeral was for a person who was from a HUGE local family hence why there were about 100+ cars in the cortege

Did you see that the OP said it was a dual carriageway?

@DavidBeckhamsrightfoot funeral processions are allowed to go through red lights if the hearse went through when the lights were green.
This is providing it's safe of course.
I see a lot of horse drawn hearses where I live and just the other day I saw one where the horses waited patiently at the red light and then on green went and the lead undertaker stood in the junction to signal to other traffic to wait until all the cars had followed through.
It was slower than usual because it was horses and they were doing a sharp turn.
Not one other vehicle beeped or anything which I thought was lovely as it's usually a terrible junction for impatientness.

OP, you're fine - honestly!

Going steadily past on a dual carriageway or motorway, I’m with you OP. Have done that and will continue to. Obviously as others have said on other roads no (unless indicated to do so, which has happened).

Totally untrue.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/relationships/copingwithhgrief/practicalissuesfuneralprocession.shtml#:~:text=Contrary%20to%20what%20you%20might,roundabouts%20or%20at%20traffic%20lights.

How were cars split off from the hearse by someone else overtaking the hearse in a second lane?

It's been about 100 more comments since my last post and still not a single one of the posters saying it's unacceptable have acknowledged we are taking about a second lane which is entirely different to a single lane road.

But say there's 10 cars in a procession - how do you know? Do you all just stop at roundabouts and risk an accident? Life goes on

This why the PP said the funeral director had told them to keep their lights on. Sometimes they use their hazards, sometimes there are cards in the dashboards.

Yabu. You don't overtake a hearse as a mark of respect.

On a dual carriageway I would overtake. I wouldnt wizz past at 100mph or anything but I'd definitely overtake albeit slowly.

@Projectme sometimes when it a really big funeral police will help stop/direct traffic.

I agree, it's OK on a dual carriageway, otherwise you just stay in a queue, short of your journey being an emergency of course.

Don't feel too bad, and though it's acceptable on a dual carriageway, it's still respectful to wait, imo.

We were on a dual.carriageway with my granddad's funeral many years ago, a young lad roared by in his little sporty Fiesta, I'll never forget it, we were all so upset at his lack of respect. He would have only needed to get behind us for 10 minutes or so.

Do you have a link to back that up.
Because Google said no they do not.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/relationships/coping_with_grief/practicalissues_funeralprocession.shtml#:~:text=Contrary%20to%20what%20you%20might,roundabouts%20or%20at%20traffic%20lights.

@confusedabouthormones

Don't feel bad. It was a dual carriage way, it's not that terrible. It's not the same as impatiently overtaking on a single lane road.

i wouldn't do it, but wouldn't condemn someone for doing it.

He was young, Arnie, try and forget it. Anyway it was on a dual carriageway and hardly impacted you.

What are you mortified about? There's absolutely nothing wrong with what you did. There's no obligation to consider whether any car other than the hearse and a limo or two is part of any procession and following a hearse doesn't absolve you from the other rules of the road.

This is a daft thing to have been thinking badly about 10 minutes later let alone years.

@itwasnevermine apologies if I am incorrect.
Maybe it's an unwritten rule then - not the highway code (I'm a non driver so have never read it).
In the scenario I saw the other vehicles would have had to run the undertaker over so there wasn't much they could do.