For crikey’s sake. Am I gonna have to start bitch-slappin’ other drivers on the road?
Newsflash:
Horny guys- your vehicle is NOT, despite your belief, equipped with a mating call device. I don’t care how happy I make lil’ willie, there is NO FRIGGIN need for two of you to honk at me as you’re driving by and I’m trying to stuff the World’s Largest FernTM into my backseat.
Your car horn is not an extension of your outside voice. I don’t care if you haven’t seen them since 1975, DO NOT lay on the horn when you see someone you know driving down the opposite side of the road or walking down the street.
Your horn is not a displeasure notifier. If something dangerous or unacceptable to you is about to happen, feel free to alert the other party to your concern with a healthy toot. However, if the damage is already done, don’t lay on the horn to indicate to said party that you think he/she is a rat bastard. There is no point. It’s over and done with. Move on with your sorry life.
Your horn does not emit, along with the obnoxious sound, a matter-dissolving ray that will magically clear the wreck, drawbridge, ambulance or red light-caused traffic with is currently piled up in front of you, preventing you from arriving at your destination with is no doubt much more important than that of surrounding motorists.
I have had it with the horn enthusiasts! Maybe I’m just a bit skittish, but hearing a car horn blaring anywhere near me in traffic SCARES me. I think of it as an alarm, and assume that the horn is alerting a driver, possibly me, that something stupid, dangerous, and
involving a fine and a hefty deductible is about to occur. If that’s not the case, for heaven’s sake, can you SHUT IT?
You don’t need to announce your arrival at your daughter and son in law’s house with your freaking horn! Their neighbors (me) DO NOT appreciate it, and I’m sure they know you’ve just pulled into the driveway - their dogs are barking loud enough. Get your lazy ass out of the car and ring the doorbell - I know you can walk, I’ve seen it. Your car horn does not say “I’m here! Come out and carry all my stuff in for me!”.
I am serious. This woman would visit her daughter a few times a week, and every single time she would drive into the driveway - honking all the way - and then get out and walk to the door. I was working weird hours (11PM-7AM) and many of those times I was woken up by her obnoxious horn.
Nope, sorry, when you cut across 3 lanes of highway doing 35 in a 65 your going to hear some serious horn. Oh, and the screaching noise you barely heard over your stereo was everyone else skidding to avoid you.
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Sorry to tell you like this, but if you can’t handle the sound of a horn, you probably shouldn’t be on the road. It’s one of the basics. Also, if you’re hearing as much horn as you describe, my guess would be that the problem is you.
Well, KP235, sounds like you’re one of those people. You know, the ones who use their horn for just about anything.
Welcome to a small southern city. We have lots of jackasses here that like to use their horn to signify any earth shattering event, such as “My air conditioner works!” or perhaps “Hey, there’s a McDonald’s!”
IIRC, (and I know this may sound ridiculous) when you learn to drive, you learn that the horn of the car has a meaning. It is used to signal a warning to other drivers.
Those are just the first few things I found on google. Granted, idiots will use a horn for anything, but sidle is right. It’s only supposed to be used to alert others in an emergency. So why don’t you take your horn, KP235, and stick it in your ear.
Yeah, I thought someone might say that the horns are a huge part of daily life. I have this stereotypical idea of horns blaring as a rule in New Jersey and New York, but here, at least, no one gets going fast enough to do much real damage.
Plus, KP235, I freely admitted that when I hear a horn, I think I could be committing an infraction. I am no example of behind-the-wheel perfection. However, when I discover that same extended laying-on infernal noise was meant not for me, but for someone’s buddy that they just say this morning driving by 3 lanes away, that’s not cool. Skerri’s right-it’s not that I don’t figure out what the sound was meant for, it’s just that around here, it’s invariably a greeting of some sort. We Southerners, we’re a polite lot, and at least around here, a lot of folks consider it de rigeur to lay on the horn by way of greeting.
NOT NECESSARY.
Plus, you may not have been the object of obnoxious, extensive
blares from men. Skerri and I both have. It’s really just the vehicular extension of the proverbial construction worker’s hoot and whistle, but DAMN, it still pisses me off. If you must, lean out the window and holler. That I can handle. However, don’t lay on the horn and alarm the motorists around you because you’ve never seen a woman before.
But then there are the people like the lady this morning who decided she wanted her car to physically occupy the same space my car was in. So, without looking, she proceeded to come into that space. Luckily, I have good brakes and a car with a healthy aversion to dents. Even though she was already over, and I was stopped, I honked to make her aware that she had just done something incredibly stupid (by the way, we were the only two cars driving in that area at that time), and so that maybe next time she will look before she gets over, as opposed to after she hits someone.
I am not a big horn user, but when it’s appropriate, I will use it.
I couldn’t be a horn user if I wanted to. Instead of going “HOOONNKKK! HOOONNKKK!” mine goes “bleat-bleat.”
If someone pisses me off and tempts me to honk, I think of how silly my horn sounds, and then I think how silly I am to let myself be bothered, so I don’t honk and I don’t stay annoyed. That bleat-bleating little horn of mine is a great pacifier.
yeah, I’ve done this too, and I’m sure I’ll do it again, but I honestly think those types of honks are less “Maybe she won’t do it next time” (do we REALLY believe that people in traffic are learning from our admonitions?)
and more
“Fuck you!”
Not saying sometimes people don’t deserve it, but it’s still causing the car horn to become the auditory equivalent of “the finger”, and while occasionally satisfying, I still think it’s poor usage.
Just an anecdote. I was on my way to a baseball game when I came across an impatient type honking his horn to get traffic to move faster while he was inside a tunnel! I took a certain amount of satisfaction from smiling sweetly and waving at him when I passed him while he was stuck in traffic outside the stadium. We were apparently going to the same game, but parking in different places.
Lucky me, I live on a traffic circle. I guess that’s my problem too, KP235? Not likely. Most anybody who has ever lived near a major traffic artery will tell you that after a short while you get used to the noise. I don’t even hear the normal traffic passing by, less than 50 feet away from my living room. But I still hear those damned car horns every 15 seconds by my watch.
You see, the problem lies with people who see a car horn as an extension of their cursing abilities. And even that wouldn’t be so bad if they didn’t practice said abilities at every single traffic light.
On my circle I hear a cacophony of car horns every time the lights cycle red. I often want to stand on the curb so I can yell at the honkers: “HE’S STOPPED BECAUSE THE LIGHT IS RED!” but they wouldn’t be able to hear me with their windows up and air conditioning turned on high. And they’d probably just blow their horn at me anyway.
Now let’s talk about taxis. I think it was Dave Barry who accurately described the three reasons why taxi drivers lean on their horns at every intersection. He said the taxi drivers blow their horns to express one of three vital emergency messages:
The light is green
The light is red
This car is equipped with a horn
#1 is the worst. Let’s go back to my circle for a moment. I’d like to use a stopwatch to see how long it takes before that taxi blows its horn at the car in front of it after the light turns green, but unfortunately my stopwatch doesn’t measure nanoseconds. What I’d yell at the taxi driver from my curb is: “HE’S NOT MOVING YET BECAUSE THE LIGHT JUST TURNED GREEN 7 NANOSECONDS AGO!” but of course by the time I got to the word “moving”, the taxi would already be half way down the next block after screeching his tired to get around the “slowpoke” at the stoplight.
So let’s remember today’s lessons:
People are supposed to stop at red lights. This is considered normal & acceptable behavior.
Blasting your horn won’t make somebody do something they feel is unsafe. Nor will it encourage the driver in front of you to proceed through a crosswalk while it is full of pedestrians.
When the light turns green, the cars in front of you are going to need a second or two to process this information and get their cars moving. Count the number of cars between you and the light and allow each one 3 seconds of reaction time to get their wheels turning. If there are three cars between you and the light, I’m sorry to say that you could conceivably have to wait as long as ten seconds before you personally get to press your own beloved accelerator pedal. I know that ten seconds seems like an eternity, but try to hang in there, okay? You’ll get home in plenty of time to jerk-off to American Idol while you drop food from your Swanson TV dinner* down the front of your sweat-stanied v-neck t-shirt.
Your horn is not a magic button that makes gridlock go away. If you had two brain cells to rub together you would have figured this out by now.
Don’t blast your horn after the fact. Sure, you just barely missed that guy who ran the red light, but what do you expect him to do as a result of you blasting your horn- back up?
Your horn may be a vent for frustrations, but you have no justifiable right to cause a chain reaction of frustration in every single person within a 500 foot radius of you who has to listen to your horn announce that you are unable to cope with big city traffic.
[sub]*Turkey with stuffing & succotash. Dessert is cherry cobler that has partially spilled over into vegetable compartment.[/sub]
I’m sorry, but three seconds per car is a ridiculous amount of time for people to react. If it takes you three seconds to react to something (light changing) that you know is coming up and should be paying attention to, you have no business being on the road. You are a danger to yourself and others. It isn’t as if they actually take three seconds to react, either. It’s that people see a red a ligh as an opportunity to do other things (read, put on makeup, eat, yell at their offspring in the back seat), and then don’t see the light when it changes. If you’re not going to pay attention to the world around you while in a car, all the time, then you shouldn’t be driving. Take the bus or something.
I completely disagree. When the light turns green and I’m first in line, I don’t immediately rush through. I wait a second or two (gasp!) to make sure some asshole isn’t barreling through the now-red signal from the other direction. I’ve seen people get creamed at green lights due to this, and I don’t want to become one of them, especially since my little ones are usually in the car.
I’ve seen people get creamed going when they have the right-of-way at a stop sign. I’ve seen them get creamed driving the correct way on a one-way street. I’ve seen them get creamed driving at the speed limit on a highway. You might want to stay home, because some other factor you can’t control might injure you. I don’t have a problem with people quickly checking at a green light to make sure they’re clear, but if you take several seconds to do so, you’re impeding the flow of traffic. If the traffic light is green all day long, no big deal. Where I most often see this is as red/green arrow controlled left turns, where the green arrow is lit for, many times, five or so seconds. Taking half of that time every light cycle has a disastrous effect on the movement of cars through the trun lane.
Besides, Attrayant indicated that three seconds per person stopped at a light was not unreasonable. I put forth that it is. Even using your example, if several other cars have proceeded through the intersection, you probably don’t need to pause and take your time making sure the way is clear.
:rolleyes: Don’t give me that stupid arguement that I just need to stay home. Yes, I know accidents happen anywhere, anytime. Taking a little time to try to prevent an accident does not make me a nervous Nellie who should just stay home.
Well, I don’t keep a stopwatch, so I can’t time my hesitation to the nanosecond for you. But I’m not sitting there going “one-one thousand, two-one thousand,” I just pause and look both ways before going through the green light to make sure it’s clear. And no, I don’t do that when other people have already gone through - as I said above, I do that when I’m first in line.
If someone wants to give him or herself a stroke by getting irate and blaring the horn because I use a little caution, then let them have at it.
If 2 seconds is acceptable and 3 is “ridiculous”, that means you’re getting your panties in a bunch all because of a one second difference.
If we were talking about people standing in line at the grocery checkout I might tend to agree that 3 seconds would seem an unusual amount of time for you to move forward after the person in front of you has moved forward. But considering that we’re talking about an operation that involves multiple 2,500 pound motorized chunks of metal & multiple sources of human error, I don’t think 3 seconds is unreasonable.
But just for kicks let’s be generous and grant the driver of the first car cat-like reflexes and assume that he can get moving in 2 seconds. Surely you realize that the driver of the second car will not move forward in lock-step with the first. And we can even add another whole second (gasp!) while the driver in the second car waits for enough distance between him and the car in front before he starts moving.
I don’t deny you the right to get a little impatient during a ten second wait (assuming you’re fourth in line) at a green light, but that is no reason for you to rattle the eardrums of every single person within a 500 foot radius.
In this city, if you don’t wait a couple of seconds before you go through an intersection, you will get hit. When the light turns red, it apparently means that ‘ooh, one more car will fit through!’
Yesterday I was riding my bike home. There is a lot of construction at a pretty busy intersection. (King and Calhoun, for those that live here.) The light on King turned red. Calhoun turned green. The jackass in the BellSouth Mobility truck sat there on King, blaring his horn for the guy in front of him to run the red light. He laid on the horn until the guy started inching up. The construction workers were freaking out, because the entire intersection is 1 lane on King and 1 on Calhoun. People were cruising through the intersection on Calhoun, and the BellSouth Dick just couldn’t wait on the light to change. Unfortunately, the guy in front actually ran the light, and the BellSouth Dick got his way. The construction worker did smack the side of his van with something as he bullied his way through the intersection. I hope it was a big-ass wrench.
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that there are so many accidents and poor drivers if a two-second reaction time is considered “cat-like reflexes” by some.
Am I the only one who lives in New York? Three seconds is enough to get ten or twelve cars through a green light around here. If I had to wait ten seconds for three cars in front of me just to start moving, I probably wouldn’t lay on my horn, but I’d be a little peeved. Being cautious is one thing, but hesitant drivers are a nuisance. Have some idiot pull out in front of you at the last second because they couldn’t make up their minds, and you’ll know where I’m coming from. Learn how to judge whether it’s safe efficiently, and you don’t have to hear horns. Three seconds is too long. And if you think I’m being stupid by ranting about seconds lost, those seconds can have dire consequences given the right traffic amounts and patterns. Gridlock can be caused by a second lost here or there.
If there’s one car in front of me, and it just sits there when the light turns, and I can’t see that the driver is having problems with their car, I usually sould my horn, a short hit, just enough to say, “Ahem.” That usually gets them to start moving, and doesn’t piss them off. I agree, there’s no reason to say the equivalent of, “You stupid bastard! Can’t you see the light’s green? Move your ass!” That’s uncalled for.
The only horn-based peeve of mine is when someone beeps before the light turns green. I mean, I can see the status of the cross-traffic’s light most times, but I don’t hit the gas until my light’s green. That’s just common sense. But I see these morons edge out into intersections just before it turns green, because they overanticipate the cross-traffic red. They then expect the same behavior from the rest of us. Well, buck off, fucko.
Attrayant: Rattling eardrums at 500 feet? That’s a mighty powerful horn. Does everyone in your neighborhood drive big rigs?
The sound may not be quite as loud at 500 feet, but it’s still just as ugly. Maybe my conniption is agrivated by the fact that nobody seems to just toot their horns, they really LEEEEEAN on them.