Funeral processions...

[paramedicmike]

...are an interesting occurrence. Just today, for example, I encountered one that was at least 70 cars long. Yes, that is seventy cars. And those were just the ones I could see. I counted 50. There were at least another 20 down the road and over the hill where I lost sight. They all had their blinkers on and the bright orange "Funeral" stickers on their windows. To be sure, they all plowed through red lights to make sure all 70+ cars made it to the cemetery where there most certainly wasn't enough parking for all of them.

It got me thinking, though. In my years in EMS, I've not once encountered a funeral procession while responding to a call. Have any of you? How'd you handle it? Plow through the middle or wait? Or did someone yield to you?

There isn't any real importance to this question. It's more for trivial discussion. But I thought I'd ask anyway.

I'll save my thoughts on funerals and the idea of a funeral procession for later.

-be safe

[Arizonaffcep]

I'm not sure of any law or regulation that spells it out specifically in AZ. That being said, I have had several conversations with the folks who are usually hired to direct traffic for them, and they say that emergency vehicles should have the right of way, as preventing the living from becoming the dead is of higher importance.

This has the potential to unfold interestingly, I've often speculated about this scenario with my partners.

[firedoc5]

From what I've experienced is that normally the funeral procession will stop and pull over. But due to respect do not use your siren.

It may be different in other areas.

[p3medic]

I guess I'm lucky, I seem to run into them all the time. We try to avoid cutting through them, but its rediculous in my opinion to delay care to a living person for a corpse in a car.

[Michael]

I'd think that traveling in a funeral procession would put motorists in the state of mind most disposed to appreciate the value of life and health, and therefore most inclined to defer to an emergency vehicle. As in: "How sad that I can do nothing to revive the person we're mourning. [*Hears siren, looks in rear-view mirror, sees flashing lights.*] But look! Here's something I can do to keep another person alive! Let me pull over and stop to keep the poor guy ticking, which I can no longer do so for the deceased."

But I've thunk wrong before.

[Dustdevil]

They all had their blinkers on and the bright orange "Funeral" stickers on their windows.

Hmmm... never seen or heard of this funeral sticker thing (except on the Google just now). Must be unique up north or something. Kinda like the purple funeral lights that are only seen in certain areas of the country. We see neither in Texas or California. Did every car in the procession have stickers on it?

Down here, everyone turns their headlights on, but never seen people using their flashers, and that sounds like a recipe for rear-end collisions when people start turning without turn signals.

There is a highway that runs near my home that leads to the largest black cemetery in the area, and there is at least one procession a day going down, if not more. I've lost track of how many major accidents they've had in them, some of them pretty gnarly. They're usually moving around 55 mph, and running through red lights. Cross traffic with the green light gets creamed by them every now and then.

[CBEMT]

My grandmother's funeral procession was obscenely long (7 kids, 21 grandkids, one of her children involved in state politics, etc). I didn't count, but I remember we actually had local cops leapfrogging ahead of us, blocking intersections all the way from the church to the cemetery (funeral home to the church was about 1000 feet).

The one time I remember encountering a procession while under emergency conditions, the car to my right in a 4-way intersection stopped and waved me through.

My former private ambulance job did not typically post trucks, but a few years back there was a police LODD funeral procession that was going right by our main station, which also happened to sit on a main approach route to 3 SNF contracts and one hospital. All units out of that station posted in various locations for the duration of the funeral.

[paramedicmike]

Hmmm... never seen or heard of this funeral sticker thing (except on the Google just now). Must be unique up north or something. Kinda like the purple funeral lights that are only seen in certain areas of the country. We see neither in Texas or California. Did every car in the procession have stickers on it?

Down here, everyone turns their headlights on, but never seen people using their flashers, and that sounds like a recipe for rear-end collisions when people start turning without turn signals.

It could be a northern thing. Now that I think about it, I don't recall seeing them on cars in funeral processions in other regions of the country. These guys went all out, too. All had headlights and four-ways and the stickers.

-be safe

[Richard B the EMT]

I have been in a few processions, and have seen ambulances cut through at exits.

I have also been in "departmental funerals", and civilians have fallen into the cortege line, amongst the Emergency vehicles, to get through traffic quicker.

It is only in the last decade of so, I have seen orange stickers with black lettering on them, on the upper right side of windshields of cortege line vehicles, or black triangular flags with the word "FUNERAL" on them in white lettering, clipped to the driver's windows.

It is my observation, and I hope not viewed as racist, that this seems to be, primarily in the New York City area, an oriental thing.

[Arizonaffcep]

Could be a case of DWA...driving while Asian.