I’ve tapped the horn gently to let drivers of Extremely Large Vehicles changing lanes at the speed of sound know they’re about to steamroll over my compact car.
Yep, got the, “Got yer sixguns ready, bitch?” middle finger waving out the window.
Driving rush hour in Austin…sheesh. It’s ALL one big shoot-out. :rolleyes:
The late **Mother Silver1’s ** Oldsmobile tank that she drove in the 1980’s…now THAT car had a horn! I loved driving her car not because it was the size of a Sherman tank, but because the horn sounded like a pack of stampeding elephants. It could blast out windows a full city block away. It was cool.
I tells ya, I got some respect in that car.
No, not THAT kind of respect. It was my mother’s car, come on!
I’m a honker. I have come to realize that I have horrible road rage, not the kind where you pull up and shoot the guy, but where you get pissed and pound on the steering wheel while stuck in traffic (thing the opening of Office Space)… I will honk at a car if it sits at a green light too long, I will honk and yell… I guess I am just an ass…
Did you consider the possibility that the driver may have stalled out? This happened to me pretty frequently when I was getting re-acquainted with the manual (especially on the steep hills around my place of employment) and more than one person honked at me, which only added annoyance to my frustration. I was tempted many times to shoot the bird.
I have a very small car (almost Geo Metro sized) and a lot of people who drive SUVs don’t seem to realize I’m there. Having driven large cars before, I realize it’s an easy mistake to make.
So I’m not above leaning on my horn when they, or anyone else, is doing something that might hurt me, or if they don’t seem to realize the light is green. I only use my horn if I have to, because I don’t like being honked at (even if I’m doing something wrong…I think it’s an embarassment thing), but if I’m about to be merged into and have nowhere to go (read: someone else is riding my ass), I’ll use the horn - usually out of fear.
Although I have done it when pissed. I was at a four-way stop. The rules here in NV are that the first person to stop gets to go first, and if they all stop at the same time, the person closest to north gets to go. I was at a stop sign and no one else was there, so I started to go and suddenly this elderly lady in an SUV BLOWS through the intersection without stopping, coming about two inches from hitting me. I leaned on my horn hard then, because she deserved to be honked at. It’s called a STOP SIGN for a REASON.
Understood. I have honked at drivers who (unknown to me right then) stalled at a light.
BUT, when they still didn’t go, I assumed that they did indeed have some problem and so I didn’t do so repeatedly.
It did help if they made some “frustrated gesture” inside their car that I could see, or if they stuck their hand out the window and waved me to go around if I could.
I got pulled over by a cop in a residential neighborhood of Washington, DC for using my horn to alert the oblivious driver ahead of me that the light had changed, after several seconds of waiting. The cop didn’t give me a ticket but looked pissed off that anyone had dared to use a car horn on his beat.
I’ve heard the phrase “New York minute” (or “New York second”) defined as the infinitesimal length of time in Manhattan between the light turning green in front of you and the driver behind you leaning on his horn.
Not true. I grew up in the south and I remember one of my mom’s friends telling me that when she learned to drive, she was instructed to honk her horn while passing someone, continuously from when the passing maneuver was begun until you are back in your own lane in front of the other car. When I took driver’s ed, I noticed that my instructor was old as the hills so I asked him about this and he confirmed that that was indeed what they used to teach people, and everyone practiced it.
Interesting. I’ve never heard of that practice or seen it in action, but I can imagine how it might have been a useful thing on a rural two-lane, to alert someone not to make a left turn while you are passing them.
That reminds me of one of the biggest fears I had growing up driving on those roads. I was always afraid I’d be passing someone and someone would make a right turn out of their driveway, without looking, right into my front bumper.
That’s why I’ve always made it a point to look BOTH ways, even if I’m making a right-turn.
Agreed. I learned to drive in Texas. Tapping one’s horn, as the OP described, is friendly and fine. Laying on it is asking for an ass-kicking.
Of course, I live in Massachusetts now. Had to unlearn that in a hurry. Massholes communicate via intensity and length of horn blasts. I’m conversent now.
