While driving in the rain in Douglasville, our reporter at large, Bill Torpy, finds drivers pulling to the side of the road as a funeral procession goes by.

“Boy, that’s old school, I thought,” Torpy writes. “I forgot they still do that. People in Atlanta barely acknowledge speeding, 60,000-pound firetrucks, much less slow-moving funeral processions.”

Torpy calls Jerry Braswell at Georgia Motor Escorts, which provides off-duty motorcycle police for funeral processions.

As a rule, Braswell says, the further from Atlanta, the more people pull over. But some of the suburbs have also gotten too busy to abide by tradition.

“In Sandy Springs, it ain’t gonna happen,” Braswell said. “There you have to make them stop.”

Subscribers may read the full Bill Torpy at Large on our premium website, MyAJC.com.

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