Impatient drivers must "show respect" for funeral corteges after a hearse was side-swiped, delaying someone's funeral and causing £20,000 of damage, a funeral director has said.
He said similar situations were happening "weekly" and drivers had even become abusive.
Which drivers? Are we talking about imports here? Be honest!
The National Association of Funeral Directors (NAFD) said it was a growing problem across the UK.
He told the BBC a cortege should be treated like a train on the road and pleaded with drivers to be patient. "It's happening weekly... someone will cut up a hearse or not let us out at a junction cutting in between the cortege and separating families," Mr Griffiths said. "It's just a lack of respect."
Is it because we have imported a huge number of people who didn't grow up in cultures where this respect was commonplace?
I'm of an age and a culture where my father - who often wore a flat cap due to his Yorkshire heritage - would stop and remove it if a cortege passed while he was walking in the street, and if driving, would always slow down...
The funeral director, who said he tried to keep off main roads and recently added white flashing lights to his hearses, urged motorists to let funeral processions go ahead, adding that a "few extra moments" was all they needed.
"It's just wrong not stopping and letting the whole cortege go so all the family can stay together as a mark of respect," he said. Mr Griffiths' remarks were echoed by Modris Kesans, the founder of Kilvey Carriages in Swansea, who said: "The public are in too much of a hurry... they will even cut in front of a horse drawn funeral carriage."
Is it really 'the public' Modris, or a subset of them?
Stopping for a cortege is a "tradition" amongst road users, it said, a "moment of dignity and respect for the deceased and their family".
Wrong tense, I fear. We didn't change the tradition. we changed the populace.
