EAST Lancashire is a hotbed for shocking incidents of road rage against funeral processions.

More than half of motorists have seen incidents against processions, including rude hand gestures, verbal abuse, threatening behaviour, drivers cutting in, loud music played, or aggressive overtaking.

In Blackburn, Darwen, Burnley and Brierfield, fun- eral directors have almost been run over – and even had eggs thrown at them outside a church.

According to a study by the Co-operative Funeralcare, which runs five funeral homes in the Blackburn and Burnley areas, it has become ‘commonplace’ for inconsiderate and impatient drivers to show disrespect and berate sombre corteges.

Sarah Bolton, 34, who runs Co-operative Funeralcare in East Lancashire, said: “The concern for us is that this road rage could be the abiding memory of the day for the bereaved fam-ilies.”

Sarah, who is often walking or ‘pacing’ at the front of the procession, outlined some of the incidents she had witnessed.

“In one instance, I was trying to lead the hearse and a lot of private cars out of St Silas’ Church onto Preston Old Road, close to the Buncer Lane roundabout.

“It was a busy time of the day and I was edging out, with the hearse clearly right behind me.

“But people just started swerving round me dangerously and I thought I was going to be run down.

“Another time on Livesey Branch Road, about 12 months ago, we had just pulled away from a client’s house when a car went screaming down the outside of the procession, overtaking, cut in and almost piled straight into me.

“And arriving at Our Lady of Perpetual Succour RC Church, Blackburn, on another occasion, people started throwing eggs at us from a housing estate.”

Sarah, who is from Burnley and lives in Oswald twistle, said sometimes it could be just down to accidental ignorance and the procession would pull aside to let the car past.

According to the Co-operative Funeralcare survey, Northern England came out at the top of a list of regions with the highest instances of funeral road rage, above Scotland and South East England.

Funeral directors agree, and say about one in five funeral corteges are disr-upted by other road users.

The majority of staff said there had been an increase in ‘discourteous behaviour’ in the last five years.