CITY SMART: How to thrive in the urban environment of Southern California : They Make the Going Easier : Escorts Keep Funerals in Line With the Power to Stop Traffic

They are often mistaken for real cops. But they may be mustachioed plumbers, accountants or used car salesmen dressed in uniforms.

Their job is to escort funeral processions, and anybody can do it. Some of them wear patches that read “traffic control officer,” but, according to the California Highway Patrol, they really aren’t.

They have limited authority. They can stop traffic at intersections, but can’t issue a ticket if you disobey.

“I’ve had people want me to fix a ticket, though. They get a little bit irritated when I tell them I’m not a police officer,” said Riley Horton, who used to clean smokestacks but now wears a uniform and a badge that says “funeral escort.”

CHP officers say they receive complaints all the time from stranded motorists about “officers” driving by without stopping to assist when, in actuality, they are escorts. The escorts themselves chuckle about how motorists slow down when they spot the cop look-alikes.

“We are available for weddings and parades and anything else,” Horton said. They also occasionally escort celebrities. “Some of them want to put a show on,” one escort said about the celebrities. But the escorts have no authority to hold up traffic for anything other than funerals.

If they enter an intersection on a green light, they are allowed to hold traffic even after the signal turns red until the funeral procession passes through.

The rules can vary from county to county, but in Los Angeles County, they also are permitted to stop traffic on freeway onramps--but not on the freeways or offramps--for a funeral procession.

That’s all.

“They don’t have any authority to pull anybody over,” CHP Sgt. Ernie Garcia said. Nor can they order motorists to move out of their way. They can’t exceed the speed limit either.

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Some of the county’s 58 licensed escorts are off-duty or retired police. But anybody can apply for the job if they provide their own uniform and motorcycle, and obtain a license. No training is required. Pay averages $50 a funeral, according to Horton, who works 35 to 45 funerals a month.

Escorts can be distinguished from real cops by a closer look at their uniforms, which by law are not supposed to resemble those worn by the CHP, sheriff or local police. (Many escorts wear chocolate brown pants with a brown stripe, tan shirt and tan and black helmet.)

They are prohibited from using police scanners and sirens (though at least one escort admitted having a British-type police siren) or using red or blue strobe lights on their motorcycles (though some use outlawed amber or white strobes). They can use their flashing hazard lights to alert traffic of a procession.

The escorts say they do not receive the respect they should.

“There was something on the radio about a year ago. . . . They said, ‘Those escorts out there, you don’t have to pay attention to them. They’re not cops. You don’t have to do anything they say,’ ” recalled D.A. Schuster, a 51-year-old retired policeman who works as an escort. “All they did was make our job harder.”

“If people have to sit through a couple of signals, sometimes some of them will start honking and yelling,” said Dennis Brandow, a retired gas company employee who works as an escort.

“We’ve been called names and everything else, and there is still nothing we can do,” said Tony Croce, a former limo driver who works as an escort. He said the uniforms are necessary “so we can get some credibility.”

State law makes it a misdemeanor, punishable by a $500 fine, for anyone who “disturbs, obstructs, detains or interferes with any person carrying or accompanying human remains to a cemetery.”

But a CHP spokesman said the law applies only to people who block a hearse with their car, for example, not someone who ignores an escort’s raised hand and cuts through a procession.

Still, CHP officers urge motorists to obey the escorts at intersections and onramps “at least out of respect for the deceased and the bereaved.” Police also can ticket motorists--as they can any time--for an ordinary traffic infraction if they witness an unsafe maneuver near a funeral procession.

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Some CHP officers say they see funeral escorts overstepping their authority--and ticket them (that must be a sight!) for such things as crossing double yellow lines or stopping traffic in the right lane of the freeway. They have even arrested some--for impersonating officers--who were wearing uniforms that too closely resembled those of the real thing.

“If you like motorcycles, it’s a good job,” said Dennis Brandow, a retired gas company employee who works as an escort.

Croce urges motorists to be patient and not to cut through a funeral procession, even if one of the drivers waves them through.

“They don’t realize when they let the guy through, one of our officers is coming through on the left or right side of the procession and it’s too late,” said Croce, who knows seven escorts who were injured last year by impatient drivers.