In a Funeral Procession, Respect and Safety Get the Right of Way

As we inch our way through downtown Los Angeles, my son wants to know why we aren’t driving faster. We have come upon a funeral procession, a long chain forged of disparate links--Mercedes and Pontiacs, sleek sports cars and rusty, rattling compacts. An automotive testimony to a person whose friendships, it would seem, knew few economic boundaries.

I tell Danny Mac we are driving slow because someone has died and her or his friends are going to say goodbye and they are very sad.

“Why, Mama, why?”

Taking a deep breath, I tell him that people don’t get to live in their bodies forever and ever, and sometimes our friends have to leave their bodies while we’re still in ours and so we miss them. I’m navigating unknown waters here, maternally speaking, so I also tell him that the people in the cars will see their friend eventually and, in the meantime, the person who has died can play with the baby Jesus and his Mama and Da in Heaven, which is, by all accounts, a very fun place.

“Why, Mama, why?”

Having reached the limit of my front-seat theology, I concentrate on driving. In fact, the issues that seem to occupy most of the non-funeral participants stopping and starting and slowing around me have more to do with the parameters of traffic law than the existence of heaven.

There are two lanes of south-bound traffic; the funeral occupies the left lane, with motorcycle officers moving like satellites in the right, stopping traffic at lights to allow the line to proceed unbroken, chastising the lone motorist who breaks into the line, then dodges back out again.

Meanwhile, the rest of us try to figure out what to do, casting our minds back to the hours we spent in driver’s ed. Are funeral processions like school buses or can you pass them on the right? If they’re going through a red light, can you follow suit? If they’re in the left lane, can you drive in the right lane? Can you drive the speed limit even though they’re not?

I am always struck by the respect most motorists show funeral processions, especially when they are strung out for miles on a freeway. Even the most blatant lane-changing, tailgating, limit-exceeding drivers tend to give them ample room, sometimes even slowing down, as if reminded that life goes by fast enough as it is. In Los Angeles, we may break every rule, every traffic code, but by God, we pull over for emergency vehicles and we don’t get in the way of funeral motorcades.

Eventually, the one I am following takes a left turn and those of us who had decided passing a funeral would be bad luck breathe a sigh of relief. But to avoid future confusion, I called the LAPD to find out what the rules are. They are, it turns out, quite simple: It is a violation of municipal code to break into a funeral procession and also to ignore any requests made by the officer-escorts. Non-procession cars may drive in the adjacent lane and pass the procession, although respect for participants (turn down the bass, don’t honk your horn) is expected.

The procession may not run a red light, but should the light turn red before all the cars are through, those in the procession may continue on red. That courtesy does not extend to you. On a freeway, drivers who enter the procession inadvertently (at an entrance or exit ramp, for example) should change lanes as soon as it is safe to do so.

If only explaining the nature of life, death and heaven were so simple.

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Mary McNamara can be reached at mary. mcnamara@latimes.com.