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Apparently, Everyday People Drive Hearses

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A black 1959 Cadillac Hearse
Photo: GSP 56 via CC

A few weeks ago, I wrote about a fateful trip to the grocery store during which I saw a woman in a Chevrolet Equinox eating something with a spoon while driving. I was concerned.

During my most recent visit, I saw a young man driving a Cadillac hearse like it was an Escalade. This time, I was confused.


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My understanding of hearses

Up until that moment, I thought that hearses were exclusively for four things: transporting dead bodies, transporting Peter Venkman and the gang to their next ghost busting appointment, confusing your neighbors, and turning into crazy Mad Max-esque monstrosities. Never in my wildest dreams did I expect to see someone casually tooling around a Kroger parking lot in a mortician mobile. Apparently, I was dead wrong.

A life after the funeral

In a quest for clarification, I turned to the internet. I ended up finding out that it’s not at all abnormal for people to drive hearses like regular cars, and some people even swear by them. Take Lisa Rogak, for example. In a 2010 article she penned for Matador Network, she detailed why she loves driving hearses so much and why she’s owned seven of them over the last decade (not a great survival rate, in my opinion). Her current one is named Ruby, just in case you were curious.

The main factors she pointed out were outstanding cargo space, decent gas mileage, and low mileage. She also said they handle well, drive like a tank, and are easy to locate in a jammed parking lot.” Her sentiments were echoed by Stacy Jo over at Funeral Cars Blog, who wrote an entire article explaining called “5 Reasons Your Next Car Should Be A Hearse.”


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I hate to say it, buy Rogak and Jo make a compelling argument. Perhaps the young man whose path I crossed wasn’t taking a break from playing creepy organ music as I had originally assumed; maybe he was just an enterprising individual who got a great deal on a low-mileage ride with plenty of room to help his friends move.

In fact, I applaud him for ignoring the stigma of driving a car that carries such a macabre connotation. Well done, stranger. You keep doing you.