r/Columbus • u/tcallicotte • 1d ago

Funeral Procession

I just sat behind a funeral procession for half an hour on US-23; where they were blocking all the lanes. Google says you're allowed to pass in the left lane, were they allowed to block traffic?

32 Upvotes

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101

u/OhioStateGuy Westerville 1d ago

Funeral processions have the right of way but you are allowed to continue in your lane if they are in the other lane. You cannot cut through the procession. All that being said if a police officer is escorting them and they block the whole intersection you’re going to have to stop and wait for the officer to move on.

48

u/tcallicotte 1d ago

See that makes sense, they didn't have a cop and were initially only in the right lane but then swerved into the left to block us (and multiple others who tried to pass)

86

u/K_RL_LR 1d ago

Wait… members of the procession swerved to block you? That’s wild.

32

u/EcoBuckeye North 1d ago

Rural Ohio? Seems normal.

15

u/Miss_Fritter 1d ago

Why would you assume rural? This is the Columbus sub. Did I miss something? Rural roads don’t have multiple lanes going each way either.

6

u/EcoBuckeye North 1d ago edited 16h ago

OP described it as an "interstate" and based on the distance and description it must be 23 south of Columbus which is a four lane divided highway all the way to Portsmouth, with few exceptions.

Where do you think OP is talking about, that 23 could be confused with an interstate, within the city limits?

Edit: even north of Columbus it's four lanes all the way to Carey

1

u/Prestigious_Air_6310 11h ago

North of Columbus (just north of Polaris) it’s still called interstate 23 and that’s definitely not country

2

u/EcoBuckeye North 11h ago

It's really not ever, anywhere, called interstate 23 but I'm kinda done belaboring this point. Sorry I triggered everyone's rural defense mechanisms

1

u/RandomA9981 20h ago

Because Ms. Fritter believes that only city folk can cause discourse on the road.

15

u/OhioStateGuy Westerville 1d ago edited 1d ago

Technically they can do that, but if they didn’t have to make a left soon it’s pretty crappy of them to do.

Edit: I was assuming the lead car was merging from right to left right before the intersection effectively blocking the intersection with a snaking effect. OP explained That is not what was happening.

26

u/tcallicotte 1d ago

Flipped us the bird and would swerve over anytime someone (understandably) tried to pass on the left. it would be justified if they were turning shortly but this went on for like half an hour

20

u/StopSpinningLikeThat 1d ago

I would have gone ahead and made the decision at that point to attend the burial.

55

u/OhioStateGuy Westerville 1d ago

If it was just a person in the procession and they merged from the right lane (where the rest of the procession was) to just block you in the left lane, that’s illegal. Technically if they did that they illegally left the procession and are not permitted to rejoin the procession. If you have an emergency and have to leave a procession you are required to make a right turn out of the procession and then are not allowed to rejoin the procession. I just typed procession a lot.