So I’ve been regularly collecting together my sightings of distinctive traffic cones deployed for churchyards, potentially utilised for any gathering and ceremony at the church, but from their colour they are demonstrably used for funerals where designated parking is required for the hearse and the deceased’s family and friends participating in the service. I’ve addressed them in the following posts:

These are but one element of our drive-thru death culture.

I’ve seen plenty more of these at churchyards since, but this one struck me as worthy of further comment, because I encountered it in a multi-faith secular municipal crematorium and cemetery. Yet rendered in black-and-white, it is unambiguously a piece of funerary material culture, both denoted by the word ‘funeral’ and adorned with a Christian motif: the cross. So is the cross, in this context, simply a symbol of death itself, to be deployed for parking for those attending cremation and graveside burial services regardless of their faith and cultural background?