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Normally, hearses are used to transport deceased bodies to their final resting place. However, the White family has a completely different idea for hearses.

In the town of Springvale, Maine, residents often see the White family drive around in a 1990 hearse that the father purchased off of eBay. While it was used for its original purpose for 16 years, it gave more than 15,000 deceased people their final ride. But when Dan White purchased it and gave it the license plate MORBID1, he and his wife did something completely different.

Today, the White family uses the hearse to bring groceries home from the store, take their kids to school events and make sure their teens and friends have a safe and unique ride to the prom. In addition, they rent their services to people celebrating a divorce and other special events.

To accomplish this, the Whites had to do some modifications to the inside. After all, funeral cars aren’t designed to carry many people in the sitting position. They installed a minivan seat and an entertainment system that passengers just die for.

Their fascination with death-related things does not end with hearses, though. The family has company named Morbid Productions which runs a haunted attraction during the Halloween season and makes caskets for pets throughout the year.

This is truly a unique use for hearses.

Recently, columnist Steve Blow with the Dallas News wrote a piece about how people are being more frugal with their funeral choices these days. He began the piece by asking readers if they were more afraid of dying or the price of their funeral. If you’re like many people, he says, you’re just as worried about the price of your funeral as you are about dying.

Along with Joe Tinnin, who teaches psychology at Richland College, Blow encourages people to shop around for their funeral. They should treat it as they would any other purchase. After all, you wouldn’t choose the most expensive computer or the best car on the lot without doing your research and shopping around first. That’s why Tinnin also teaches a class about funeral costs and shopping. In the class, he requires students to visit funeral homes and get prices for various services, such as funeral cars, flowers, and other aspects that typically accompany a funeral. And since funeral homes are required to offer an itemized list of services and options, shopping around for funeral services is becoming more and more common.

It’s never too early to start thinking about your own funeral. You can start shopping around today and planning for the number of funeral cars you want, the types of services you want and anything else to make your funeral the way you want to say goodbye to all your loved ones.

Calvin Natt used to play for several teams in the NBA, including the New Jersey Nets, the Denver Nuggets, the San Antonio Spurs and others. However, today he drives hearses, embalms bodies and comforts families when a death occurs.

One of the deaths he had to take care of two years ago was the death of a four-year-old girl. Although he has been in the business for several years, the death of a young child just a few days before Christmas was something that tugged at his heart. The parents were not in a position to pay for the services and they did not have life insurance on such a young child.

This prompted Natt to take some action. He started the “All For One-One For All” nonprofit organization that helps take care of the financial burden of funeral services when parents suffer the death of their child. The organization does not only pay for burial, either. It covers many expenses associated with a funeral, including embalming or cremation, a casket, funeral cars, hearses, flowers, and a service. With all of this taken care of, the parents can concentrate on mourning and finding ways to deal with the situation.

Natt continues to drive hearses and take care of funeral arrangements. He enjoys helping families in their time of need.

Several funeral home companies across the country are offering partiers free rides home in their funeral cars on New Year’s Eve. This particular story comes from mid-Michigan’s Lynch Sons Funeral Directors of Milford. Between 11 p.m. and 2 a.m. on New Year’s Eve/Day, they are giving rides in the funeral cars just to make sure people get home safely on possibly the biggest party night of the year.

“We don’t mean to be party-poopers, but these are, after all, life and death decisions,” said Sean Lynch, one of the directors at the funeral home. “And we hope that by offering this service, we’re encouraging people to celebrate the New Year responsibly, arrange for designated drivers, do whatever is necessary to keep from getting behind the wheel of a car after drinking; even if it means calling your local funeral home.”

Whether your local funeral home is offering free rides in funeral cars or not on New Year’s Eve, take this as a reminder to make your own arrangements to get home safely. Taxi services and other places often offer free rides if you feel you are too drunk to drive home. Even if you’d just had a little to drink, it’s better to be safe and get a ride home from someone who has not been drinking. It’s the best way to ensure everybody enjoys the holiday to its fullest.

The need for funeral cars and hearses increases during the holidays. I used to work at a flower shop and we always noticed that the funeral homes were always busier between Thanksgiving and New Year’s, but we never understood the phenomenon.

Apparently, however, others have noticed this, too. That’s why several studies have been done to explain it. Here are some highlights of one of those studies:

• More heart-related deaths occur on December 25 than any other day of the year. This applies only to people who are not already in the hospital.
• Of people not already in the hospital, December 26 is the second largest day for heart-related deaths. January 1 comes in third.
• Many people call this phenomenon the “Merry Christmas Coronary” or the “Happy New Year Heart Attack.”
• One reason this may occur is because of all the partying, extra food and sweets that a person endures during the holidays.
• Another reason attributes the increase in deaths to people delaying medical care until after the holidays.
• The study examined more than 50 million deaths from natural causes over a 26-year period.

Funeral cars are an ominous sight around the holidays. Don’t make your family endure this. Take care of yourself during the holidays so everybody can enjoy them together.

I recently read an article online from an Abilene, Texas publication in which a person asked about the reason for police escorts in funeral processions. I’ve written on here before about how people are losing respect for processions of hearses and this article goes along with those sentiments. Here are some highlights of what the article writer had to say about police escorts and hearses.

• The writer of this article not only remembers when people would pull over for processions of hearses and funeral cars, but they would even get out of their car and put their hands over their hearts as the cars went by.
• In the state of Texas, police escorts for hearses and processions are rather common.
• Police officers involved in the police escorts are working in an off-duty capacity so as to not interfere with their regular work.
• Sgt. Doug Wrenn with the Traffic Division of the Abilene Police Department had this to say about the escorts: “Our participation in guiding family and friends to graveside services is considered a dutiful honor for those who have passed away and hopefully has also kept untimely vehicle accidents from happening.”

A group of mourners in the UK recently found out that when a car gets booted, they cannot join the procession of funeral cars to the cemetery.

The funeral in question was being held for 81-year-old Ellen Spence. After the services, mourners came outside to get in their funeral cars and drive to the burial site. However, as many as eight of the funeral cars were booted, meaning that there was a device placed on the vehicles to prevent them from moving because they were parked illegally.

Officials say the mourners should have seen the notices before parking illegally, but others disagree. “There is a very small notice as you go into the car park, but the fact is the car park is right beside the church hall so people mistakenly parked there,” said one person associated with the debacle.

Some mourners asked the company that placed the devices on their cars to remove them so they could join the procession of funeral cars. However, when the mourners were told it would cost 75 pounds, an argument broke out. After a while, they came up with the money to pay the fines, but it held up the services for a half hour and ruined the entire day for some.

As a final note, one mourner had this to say: “The only reason the rest of the cars weren’t clamped is that they ran out of clamps. I think it’s a disgrace.”

Keep this in mind the next time you park amongst other funeral cars at a funeral. Make sure you are legally parked and you’ll save yourself and others a bunch of headaches.

When it comes to the funeral industry, it would seem that vocation tends to come to appear at an early age. Many funeral directors, according to a recent study, tend to choose their occupation in their high school years. While this phenomenon isn’t unique to the funeral industry, it does appear to be especially common.

There are a variety of reasons cited that seem to be common themes when it comes to choosing the funeral director career path. Many people choose the funeral industry out of a desire to simply help people through the process of grief, while others seem to have a more technical interest in the funeral process.

For those people that switch careers sometime in their lives, a life event of one sort or another seems to pull them towards a career in the funeral industry. Many people with a background in psychology or grief counseling, for example, find the funeral industry to be a natural transition.

Whatever it is that draws someone into the funeral industry, one thing is certain: it is a career path that isn’t for everyone. It takes a special person to be able to work in the funeral industry.

When you’re looking for hearses for sale, you generally want to do the same things you would do when buying a normal car. But since many young people are looking for hearses for sale to stand out among their friends, they might not know the buying process. Here are some tips to keep in mind when buying funeral cars and hearses for sale.

1. Have cash upfront. One of the best ways to get a deal on a hearse is to have the cash in your hand when you’re shopping. Dealers are more likely to negotiate when they are getting cash right away.
2. Don’t say, “I have to save up money first.” The dealer might seem sympathetic, but he’s probably laughing on the inside. Instead, don’t go hearse shopping until you have some money already saved up.
3. Don’t finance it for more than four years. If you can’t afford to pay it off in 48 monthly payments, get something cheaper. Just think of how overwhelming it sounds to make 48 payments on something.
4. Ask family members to co-sign. This might be the most difficult part of buying a hearse, but it may be essential if you are a young buyer without a favorable credit history.

Since the CEOs of the Big Three automakers from Detroit were basically driving to the funeral of the auto industry as we know it, they could have just driven hearses to the last hearing Congressional hearing. And some people aren’t heartbroken about the decision of Congress to hold back on a total bailout for the companies, either.

One retiree from the Ford Motor Company – Frank Benko - cites the fact that auto CEOs in Japan only make about $3 million a year while the ones here in the United States make about seven times that much.

He also bemoans some of the things that the management at the automaker did before the union was part of the picture. His job was to reject cars that were not up to the quality to ship to the customers. However, management was looking over his shoulder and they would overrule his decision and ship it to the dealers anyway.

So Benko isn’t surprised that the death of the auto industry is a real possibility. It would’ve been suitable for hearses and funeral cars to surround the Capitol Building on the day of the hearings for the bailout. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens.