Cars about to crash in front of you - sound horn, or not?

Factual Questions
21

We have enough examples here that it is worth listing the statistics, I think:

Real Experiences:
No horn, no collision - Napier2 (total 1)
No horn, collision - Napier1 (total 1)
Horn, no collision - Spit (total 1)
Horn, collision - Sophistry, report2.html (total 2)
Although 2/3 of the horn scenarios resulted in collisions and only half the no horn scenarios did, I’m sure the totals are too small to conclude there is a real difference detected in the two strategies. Note, given that there are five real experiences, they couldn’t possibly even out.

Opinions (just my attempt to categorize):
Clearly in favor of horn: mnemosyne, Joey P, robby
Tending to favor horn, depending: Troy McClure
Very tough judgement call: CookingWithGas
Tending to favor no horn, depending: LSLGuy, Napier, pulykamel
Clearly favoring no horn:
In summary, 4 responses seem to favor use of the horn and 3 tend to favor no horn.

Interestingly, this question seems like a pretty even split.

22

I’m pretty thankful that somebody honked their horn at me while I was in this sort of situation. I was almost splattered all over downtown Rochester, Minnesota. I had a walk signal, and just as I stepped into the street, I heard someone to my left honking. I looked in that direction, and there was a city bus running the red light at a ridiculous speed. I jumped back just in time, and you know that scene in The Matrix where Neo jumps out of the way of the subway just in time and is balancing precariously on the platform as it speeds by? That’s precisely what I felt like.

Of course, if the honker had been to my right, I’d be very, very dead.

So, in my opinion, you should honk the horn if looking in your direction will help the imperiled individual. If honking your horn would cause them to possibly look away from the danger, then don’t.

23

I’m sorry that you took my comments that way. It was not my intent to be hurtful. However, I see the situation with the mother and the baby carriage pretty clearly as one where any bystander is obligated to do something to alert the mother to danger. If I were standing on the curb, I would shout out. If I were in a car, I would honk–and it would be a long, sustained honk. It seems pretty cut and dried to me, because I think that most people’s first reaction to a nearby honk would be to freeze and look around for danger.

It seems apparent to me that if you are watching an accident unfold, honking sure couldn’t hurt, and is likely to help in the vast majority of situations. Most accidents occur because someone is not paying attention. A potential accident may be prevented if the person not paying attention notices the problem before it’s too late. Honking, yelling, etc., in the vast majority of cases, I think, help to make people look around and pay attention to what is going on around them.

24

Time for a GQ answer. This is an absolutely valid use of the horn in the U.K.:

Note that the danger does not have to be to you.

25

Robby, I am glad you did not intend to say anything hurtful, and sorry I overreacted.

>People could have been killed in either case, and you were evidently content to watch it happen.
>If I watched … not be able to live with myself…
>However, I see the situation with the mother and the baby carriage pretty clearly as one where any bystander is obligated to do something…
>In my opinion, this is worse than someone who witnesses a crime and fails to call the police.

Surely you can see these are terrible accusations. While I don’t know how this point got confused, let me explain that I am not content to let a mother and baby be killed. Please let us not debate my justification in letting innocents die.
>In the cases the OP presents, the OP’s actions can actually prevent the accident.

This is the whole point, here. How do you know this? Don’t just tell me to read the OP again. My understanding of the OP is definitive here. The entire point of my posting was to find out whether taking action would make the situation better or worse.

> It seems pretty cut and dried to me, because I think that most people’s first reaction to a nearby honk would be to freeze and look around for danger.
>honking sure couldn’t hurt, and is likely to help in the vast majority of situations.
>Honking, yelling, etc., in the vast majority of cases, I think, help to make people look around and pay attention to what is going on around them.

OK, if you believe hearing a horn makes most people freeze and look around for danger, then you also would think sounding the horn was the best strategy. But my posting was about that belief versus the alternative, not about whether to bother lifting a finger to save lives. I re-emphasize: the horn could also distract somebody from the hazard, which as far as we know at the time they might otherwise notice. Clearly, both views have some merit and some adherents here in this thread and elsewhere.

I think my first reaction when I hear a horn is to direct my attention towards where the sound seems to be coming from (unless perhaps I’ve just been having this particular conversation). I don’t recall anyone ever sounding their horn to warn about some hazard other than themselves, so it’s not like this expectation is necessarily imbedded by driving experience.

Even in Quartz’s posting, I think it looks like:
>“Use only while your vehicle is moving and you need to warn other road users of your presence.”
and
>"…except when another road user poses a danger."
endorse opposite answers this question (Quartz’s bolding notwithstanding). They also appear to be contradictory (though perhaps only because we don’t have the whole context here). I think I would lump these two quotes into the “no horn” and “yes horn” camps, based on what is here.

26

Mishell, so far, I like your strategy below best. The more I think about this, the less I think I could improve on it for likely correctness, clarity, simplicity, and practical applicability in real life emergencies.

>So, in my opinion, you should honk the horn if looking in your direction will help the imperiled individual. If honking your horn would cause them to possibly look away from the danger, then don’t.
Also, I think CookingWithGas’s strategy is a sound one:

>“I will honk the horn if I see someone doing something that clearly indicates they are not paying attention at all to what’s going on around them.”

I think if it’s possible, we should try to apply both tests, though if there is only a fraction of a second available, well, our best shot is our best shot.

27

According to my driver’s ed. teacher, the message of honking a horn is, “LOOK AT ME!” Nothing else, and especially not, “Hurry up!” or “I’m outside your house now.”

So, I would only honk if I wanted the other person to look in my direction.

In the OP’s hypotheticals, I would say as follows:

  1. No honk

  2. Not enough facts to decide, depending on the direction the woman needs to look to avoid trouble.

OOps. I guess ditto Mishell

28

>According to my driver’s ed. teacher, the message of honking a horn is, “LOOK AT ME!”

Excellent reference, Bearflag70! Professional input at last! Unless, of course, one of our posters so far happens to be an unannounced professional driver or driving instructor.

Does your teacher say that in response to the question I posted, or just in general? If it’s just in general, can you by any chance ask what about our situations in particular to see if that changes anything? Can you ask about Mishell’s and CookingWithGas’s strategies? It would be completely exquisite if we could get that input!

29

Unfortunately, it doesn’t really matter what professional instructors may say. What matters is what the average person on the street perceives a honk to mean, and that can vary from place to place. Here it very much means “hurry up,” among other things, unfortunately, and a honk from behind would probably make me either hurry up, or glance in my rearview mirror to see what’s going on.

I agree with you and think Mishell does have the best solution, overall.

30

>Unfortunately, it doesn’t really matter what professional instructors may say.

Well, depends on why they say it. People who study accidents may well have asked these questions and collected evidence on the success of the two strategies. They may even have specifically figured out “what the average person on the street perceives a honk to mean”, which I agree seems a, or the, essential underlying issue. If anybody has been able to figure these things out, they should have tried to get the useful conclusions or the strategies favored by them into driver education courses. Who knows? Maybe they already have. It’s worth asking, I suppose.

On the other hand, it may be both interesting and disappointing to learn what kind of experimental and theoretical work goes into the creation of those course materials. The things they teach - how do they know them?

31

I think you’re overthinking this. Bearflag said his instructor said a honk does not mean “hurry up” or “I’m outside you’re house.” His instructor is right–they shouldn’t mean that. Those are obnoxious honks, and the instructor is obviously trying to instill in his students the proper use. However, this is most decidely not how people use the horn around here. Here a honk is used for every little thing, from “get out of my way” to “up yours!” to “wake up!” to “look out” to “hey, I’m waiting for you outside your door.”

I also assume that the driving instructor was teaching according to what the law says proper klaxon usage is.

32

Sorry, this was traffic school in 1987.

33

Man, I almost crashed last week zipping up the inside lane past a tram and nearly absent-mindedly driving straight through a red light. The tram driver saw what was happening and rang his bell repeatedly, which snapped me out of it and made me realise what I was doing. I would’ve had a major accident as theere were cars going through the cross street at the time. So, yeah - sound your horn, for sure.

34

Real Experiences:
No horn, no collision - Napier2 (total 1)
No horn, collision - Napier1 (total 1)
Horn, no collision - Spit, buns3000 (total 2)
Horn, collision - Sophistry, report2.html (total 2)
Summary: even split.

Opinions (just my attempt to categorize):
Clearly in favor of horn: mnemosyne, Joey P, robby,buns3000
Tending to favor horn, depending: Troy McClure, HighwayCode2
It depends:CookingWithGas,Mishell,Bearflag70
Tending to favor no horn, depending: LSLGuy, Napier, pulykamel,HighwayCode1
Clearly favoring no horn: 0
In summary, 6 responses seem to favor use of the horn and 4 tend to favor no horn.

35

Well, then I am going to put in another response in favor of the horn. Note that how you use the horn makes a difference. A short toot is what people generally use to say “hurry up”, or “the light has turned green idiot” (even if they shouldn’t). If you are on the highway and someone lays on the horn you can be pretty sure something very dangerous is happening.

Real life experience: I have definitely prevented one accident and possibly prevented two others with the horn. All three were when driving on the highway and seeing someone in front of me merging into a lane containing another car. The other car was probably in their blind spot and when I laid on the horn the first driver immediately stopped changing lanes. In one case I am pretty sure they would have hit without it as neither driver noticed the other and they got a few inches away from each other, while in the other two they may have had time to notice even if I hadn’t sounded the horn.

36

I personally use it almost the exact opposite way. I use a short toot to let people know I am there if I am not sure they do, but I reserve really laying on it for when I see people about to cut me off, and they do anyway despite the fact there’s no room in my lane.

But for situations like the OP, I too have wondered what to do. I sometimes instinctually beep the horn (a short beep but longer than a toot) when I see an accident about to occur, and sometimes it does make it more likely rather than less likely to occur.

But I think it helps in situations that happen so slowly that drivers have time to react, like when a person seems to be drifting across a lane, or a truck changing lanes slowly not realizing someone is passing it or in its intended lane.

37

Maybe we should all have PA systems so we can shout at people…

“WATCH OUT FOR THAT TREE!”

38

Yes, the horn when changing lanes always works (in my experience). When I’m changing lanes, and I hear a horn, I will instinctively swerve back to my lane, assuming I screwed up and missed somebody in my blind spot. From observing other drivers, they all do seem to have the same understanding.

39

Real Experiences:
No horn, no collision - Napier2 (total 1)
No horn, collision - Napier1 (total 1)
Horn, no collision - Spit, buns3000, flight1, flight2, flight3 (total 5)
Horn, collision - Sophistry, report2.html (total 2)
Summary:
“yes horn strategy” collisions 2/7 of the time = 29% collision rate.
“no horn strategy” collisions 1/2 of the time = 50% collision rate.

Opinions (just my attempt to categorize):
Clearly in favor of horn: mnemosyne, Joey P, robby, buns3000 flight
Tending to favor horn, depending: Troy McClure, HighwayCode2
It depends:CookingWithGas,Mishell,Bearflag70,Ludovic
Tending to favor no horn, depending: LSLGuy, Napier, pulykamel,HighwayCode1
Clearly favoring no horn: 0
Summary:
6 responses seem to favor use of the horn
4 seem to favor no use of horn.

The horn use strategy is looking better and better.

It is not obvious to me how to combine experiences and opinions in a statistically meaningful way, especially because some people have opinions and experiences that may be causally related and so not independent.

40

robby, a few people have jumped on you already but for Napier’s sake I think I ought to also. Your comparison of failing to honk with failing to call the police is beyond ridiculous. Even ignoring the central question of whether or not honking would help, this is still an issue of reaction time, not morality. Calling the police is not something that must be decided upon and done within seconds. I think it’s far too easy for you, sitting comfortably in front of a computer with your entire minutes of time to mull the issue over, to come to the conclusion that someone else should have made a different decision in a situation they weren’t prepared for and that you weren’t in.

I completely agree with this position. To the naysayers, I would like to point out that the meaning of your car horn’s honk is contextual: whether you honk your horn at the driver in front of you who isn’t going forward at the green light, or you honk your horn at the pedestrian who doesn’t see you and steps out in front of your car, your horn makes the same sound. You may mean different things by it, but the signal sent is still the same. It’s up to the person who receives the signal to interpret it, and guess how they do that? They look at you! Then, they can try and figure out what you meant by it, by assessing the situation. But first they look. So other meanings of the horn are secondary.

Now, on to actually trying to resolve the issue Napier put forth:

These seem like three very good rules. I suggest the answer to the OP’s issue is to make a decision tree/chart/thing with them, and maybe a few other rules, and then make a mnemonic out of it that drivers can drill on.

For example: “I before E unless after C, unless pronounced as A, as in neighbor and weigh. And even then a few words will just be spelled weird.”

The decision thing (what do you call these?) could look something like:

IF looking at you will make the imperiled person more likely to see the danger THEN HONK
OR
IF the imperiled person is not reacting to something directly in front of them THEN HONK
OR
IF the imperiled person is a pedestrian who should freeze THEN HONK

I think that fits all the examples given. If anybody sees how this can give a wrong decision please tell me. Also, I think the decision thing works best if the default is NOT honking, and it starts with the situations in which honking is most likely to help and works down. My version reflects how I rate the situations.

Sophistry and Illusion, why couldn’t you see the mail truck to begin with? Was your vision obstructed by a wall or hedge? If that’s the case there needs to be a rule about not honking when it’s not possible for a driver to see the danger yet and what they really need is undistracted reaction time. Could the honker have been honking at the mail truck and not you?