[tharian]

My opinion,

There is a reason for loud horns and the vehicles or machines they are required for.
For example, a Locomotive needs a loud horn because of the speed and time and distance it needs to stop.

A heavy road vehicle will come close to that and which is why there are air horns on them as well, but heavy vehicles running in the city during the day is another story and then comes the loud horns they have.

A normal road going car or bike will need a single horn at the most. I am referring to city use only. The reason behind this being, in the city, vehicles travel close together and in speeds which are slow to average. A single 'bleep' should get the attention of the one your are trying to get if he or she is attentitive.
But, as everything goes to the worst situation on our roads, so has the use of horns.
The bigger the car, the better to bully, same with the horn.

I remember when I was a kid, my dad's 800 had a switch to change to louder set or horns only for highway use and he religeously used it only then, as it was required to get the attention of noisy truckers. It is the same on my 500 Enfield which I normally use for long trips and my car. My 350 Enfield still has the stock horn out of which one is out of tune and I have left it as it and with the low painful cry of the horn, road users still hear it.

So, if this actually takes off, I am glad as it will save our ear drums, especially daily two wheeler riders.

[ashkamath]

Originally Posted by tharian

My opinion,

There is a reason for loud horns and the vehicles or machines they are required for.
For example, a Locomotive needs a loud horn because of the speed and time and distance it needs to stop.

But, as everything goes to the worst situation on our roads, so has the use of horns.
The bigger the car, the better to bully, same with the horn.

So, if this actually takes off, I am glad as it will save our ear drums, especially daily two wheeler riders.

Yes Tharian, you have made a very valuable point there. I agree to it. A ocean going ship's horn is audible a couple of Kilometers away ( I hear it at my home where as the port is a couple of Km away from my place, but it is not the shrill horn) and for the same reason that you mentioned. A ship takes a very long time to come to a halt or even take a turn and longer the distance, the horn is heard, better for other smaller vessels / fishing vessels / barges to stay away from the path of the vessel.

A truck or a bus needs larger horn as they cannot stop as fast as a car or 2 wheeler and may be it needs to be heard farther than a car's or 2 wheeler horn. But again as you rightly said, the city traffic is not the place for loud horns / shrill horns considering the slow speeds and vehicle's relative distance to each other . May be it makes sense on Highways.

But again the Govt cannot make a rule that one can have 2 horns and use the softer / original horn in city limits and louder outside city limits. then it becomes really messy. The best way is for the drivers to exercise self discipline / lane discipline and desist from honking in city and be patient all the while. Educating the road users is the need of the day instead of imposing some rules.

[PMK-MoJo]

This is indeed a welcome move from Bangalore Traffic police, atleast it will avoid unnecessary honking on the roads and near traffic signals. Things like this starts building Discipline in the Indian Drivers.

[abirnale]

Having discussed the initiatives and its pros-cons at such a length, I am wondering if anyone has seen actions so far in namma bengaluru? Does anyone know if there are any cases booked?

Today on the facebook page, BTP has posted another Kannada notice stating expected compliance for the registered license plates/ numbers. Although there is a similar discussion on the number plates somewhere on our forum, I am inclined to think as this is more of a awareness initiative than "moderate/ monitor drive". And mind you, this kind of thought would make a general driver/ owner to ignore the initiatives!

Sadly, if there aren't many cases booked for shrill horns or faulty number plates (like sun-film drive few months earlier), these so called great initiatives by BTP will remain virtuality :(

Again, this is just thinking due to lack of concrete information of how many cases are booked for horn etc and I may be wrong in thinking so, which I sincerely hope!

[ambivalent_98]

Gentlemen,
The loud horn ban is welcome for sure. The stress levels are bound to reduce if we have to honk less and hear other loud horns far less.
But then looking at it from a completely different perspective is that one can leave aside for the moment the people who honk for the fun of it. If there were an errant vehicle / pedestrian (plenty of those here in Bangalore) going on a joyride or jaywalking , how does alert them ? These folk are such that they ignore any alert that they are posing a danger to themselves and others and continue. Finally they end up getting hurt or hurting others. Maybe a loud enough burst horn can shake them out of their reverie.

Are the cops going to carry decibel meters ? Do they know how to measure the decibel level w.r.t the distance they need to hold it from the horn ? What if the OEM horns are very loud ? How will they detect these if the errant driver honks far away from the cops ? Maybe in front of the cops all will try to be as compliant as possible !!! One more strict enforcement of cops in Bangalore.

[SkyWalker]

A much needed move by Bangalore Police. Hopefully they enforce this strictly.

[Alchemist]

It is a welcome move, though i haven't come across anyone being pulled up for a loud horn in recent times. The horn pad on my Laura has significant resistance as compared to my earlier Swift. That itself stops me from using my horn frequently.. Hopefully something would be done about the load modified exhaust in an auto though. That would definitely make the long drives to work a less stressful affair.