[vijaysrk]

Re-posting my sentiments from a different thread:

This is going to be a controversial post, but I fervently believe that for someone who prioritizes self-preservation and safety over any other cause, the horn is one of the most important safety devices that you need on Indian roads.

I have installed the loudest street-legal horns I could find on all my cars, and I use them LIBERALLY for getting the attention of the trucker I'm trying to overtake, the errant helmetless two-wheeler beside/in front of me who has his phone cradled between his head and his shoulder, the autowallah who's straddling two lanes in front of me, etc.

I have no qualms about assaulting someone's aural sensibilities if that helps prevent any of the other tragic eventualities on our roads that we're all too familiar with.

While no sensible person would argue against limiting the use of horns when not required, advocating first world standards of horn usage in a country like India is not only tone-deaf (pun intended), but also irresponsible from the perspective of road safety.

[mygodbole]

Hilarious discussion so far, please continue.

If I cannot change my own attitude for civil society (and I hope I live in one), how can I expect others to change?

Thank you @vijaysrk for cementing my notion that even if I refuse to change, the sound barrier shall eventually be breached.

Please honk as usual.

And we are educated/enlightened Indians.

[revvharder]

When in Rome do as the Romans do

When i drive in India i'll keep my hand on horn and honk and when i'll drive in Germany i'll drive like the Germans, Stopping horn or refrain from honking is just a childish attempt to think we are driving in Germany and if you were to see how the driving tests that were used to be held in Delhi a few years back you'd understand why people drive ike they don't know how to drive, they were handing licenses like polio vaccines and i think in couple of states it would still be the same situation and unless tougher and comprehensive driving tests like phoren country are held in India i am happy to use my horn.

While i never liked those loud Roots megasonic horns i do upgrade horns to dual tones available aftermarket.

A couple of situations in which i use my horn:
1. You're drifting into my lane.
2. You're busy with phone in one hand and steering on other while you're seeing the screen at hand.
3. While overtaking vehicles on highways i use 2-3 short bursts of horn to tell the other vehicle that i'm overtaking and don't just scoot over in my lane, have had a few incidents in which i was overtaking and didn't honk and guess what the Tractor or the Truck just made a abrupt turn in my lane while i was overtaking. So better be safe than sorry.
4. Left hand turn is free but you just hog that lane too, it's fun to watch 2 wheeler rider hog that lane and then a car driver would come with his horn blaring because he is just frustrated with that same thing daily and every other turn.
5. I even honked at a pig once who was running to cross the highway while i was around 100 and even that pig listened and stopped on the side while the human counterparts cross like they are in a Nana Nani Park.
6. What's more frustrating pedestrians crossing while we have a 30 or 40 second window to cross that green light and suddenly light bulb goes off in their mind that they have to cross and all the vehicles needs to stop while they show their political party inclination to us and at the same time we have to deal with the vehicles/buses going from left most lane and taking the right turn because they could not wait the right most lane and wait for their turn.
7. In the day i prefer honking because this doesn't end up pissing off people and making it a full blown road rage because when i honk it could be any of the road user honking at anyone but when i flash my lights it shows them that me particularly is pissed at them particularly and several other reasons.

People on the forum can think of me just a menace to the society as i honk but hey out of 2 crore licenses handed out every year there are only around 100,000 forum members and a few lakh forum readers who would agree to this while the rest do not even have a basics of driving right and even i passed the exam with forward in 1st and reverse in a J so i'll just drive keeping in mind that rest of the license holder passed the same test and a majority didn't even give one to begin with.

[shankar.balan]

I really don’t think our habit of honking is going to stop anytime soon.
The population and crowds and general ambient noise are just too overwhelming. My watch for example is always sending me notifications about how I am in a ‘Loud environment’ - beyond 70-80db.
And basically we are a disorderly, unruly and selfish lot of people, jaywalking everywhere, engrossed in our conversations or peering at mobiles. This applies to us when we are pedestrians as well as when we are commuters and in queues as well as when we are motorists. It is inherent in our behaviour patterns. For some reason we are always in a hurry, to the exclusion of everything else. We are blissfully and wantonly unconscious of what is happening around us. We can make all the rules we want to, but we require a fundamental psychological step change in behaviour which may only come through education. (I actually wonder about that. Because as recently as yesterday I saw a pretty rich looking kid, cycling by and spitting on the road side when passing.)
However, we do have a very highly tuned sub conscious and this makes us aware of what is generally happening. This is like the ‘bats sonar’ system which seems to work quite well in India.
Honking will always be there in India. Perhaps, some people will also soon start carrying a personal buzzer/ horn, or use the mobile phone alarm, in a bid to part the ocean of humanity in front of them, in order to pass.

[vijaysrk]

Originally Posted by mygodbole

Hilarious discussion so far, please continue.

If I cannot change my own attitude for civil society (and I hope I live in one), how can I expect others to change?

Thank you @vijaysrk for cementing my notion that even if I refuse to change, the sound barrier shall eventually be breached.

Please honk as usual.

And we are educated/enlightened Indians.

I didn't expect everyone to understand the larger point I was trying to make around road safety, and I certainly wasn't disappointed in that regard!
Honking is the symptom, not the disease, and one that mere snark alone will probably not be able to cure.

Living (safely) in the real world unfortunately requires that we act in err... Rome as the Romans do, and shed our rose tinted glasses and utopian dreams of an India where everyone suddenly starts obeying traffic rules and thus obviate the need for honking altogether.

In more than fifteen years of driving abroad (mostly the US), I probably have touched the horn button three times. Back home in India, that record gets comfortably beaten within the first 30 minutes!

We live in a country where most drivers wouldn't be able to tell you who has the right of way at a cross-section (I actually asked many people, both blue collared folks and colleagues/friends, and less than one in ten actually knew!)

We live in cities where lane markers are so conspicuous by their absence that traffic flow is more akin to brownian motion than anything else.

We share the roads with people for whom traffic signals are merely suggestions as to whether to stop or go, never to be taken seriously.

We also apparently drive on the left only if leads to where we want to go. Else, it's perfectly ok to turn around and proceed on the right!

I shudder to think of the day my horn fails...

[Zippy_wheels]

This guy is requesting for horan so he can give me some space to overtake. Should I not oblige?

[Kosfactor]

Originally Posted by Zippy_wheels

This guy is requesting for horan so he can give me some space to overtake. Should I not oblige?

Yes!

The cabin of the average truck is pretty loud, one that is abused like that will be deafeningly loud and could be a handful to keep steering it to just go straight.

This is why roots horn exists, to make sure that fellow does not accidentally kill you.

[puntra800]

I guess it is something to do with people as well. We are the same bunch of people who follow the rule book to the tee when abroad, why? Because the fines are high. Take the case of Pleasanton, a small city in California the fines for jumping red light in around 500$ which is like a quarter of the salary for many of the folks, similarly the fine varies city to city and it definitely is pretty high when we see what percentage of salary it is. What does high fines lead to, automatically follow the rules.

If the same is done in India(It was attempted once) we know what are the repercussions, people will be on the streets protesting. Lets say we fine Rs 10000 for not wearing a helmet, people will argue saying that it will lead to traffic cops pocketing say Rs 1000 and letting you go but the question is how many times will one be willing to pay Rs 1000 just to avoid a challan, for any policy there is definitely sometime which is required to take effect.

Now why all the above story, to drive home the point if the fines are harsh, it will eventually lead to people following traffic discipline and eventually lesser honking.

[silverado]

Its a cultural thing. These days truckers have started writing Horn NOT ok please.

We use horns for a variety of reasons and , excessive honking is a city specific phenomena and frustration is one of the prime reasons.
There is simply no solution, do not even discuss this furthur

[samee_arian]

There was a time when IT and Financial services industry was in its initial stages in India and we would receive several top officials and trainers from US on a regular basis in Mumbai. The first thing most of them noticed was honking and spitting in India. One of the guys said, my head is hurting so much after a half hour ride from the hotel to office. It was barely a 10 mins ride and he could have made it in 20 mins if he had chosen to walk, but this was peak office time in Andheri East when the first Mumbai Metro was in its initial phase of construction. These two observations have stuck in my head since then and therefore I do not honk for no reason, wish many more of our fellow drivers/riders also give it a thought. Forget about changing attitudes of fellow riders/drivers, when I drive/ride with my wife and we are passing through a traffic snarl, my wife would complain saying "Horn kyon nahi maar raha, these idoits don't understand till someone honks hard" and I have to give in.

Anyway, that was my perspective and how it changed my behaviour.

Not sure if anyone has mentioned this, I had seen a video about a social experiment by Mumbai Traffic Police called THE PUNISHING SIGNAL. Leaving a link below, I am sure you all will like the idea. Wish they do something similar at many other places. Even if such initiatives bring about a small change in people's mindset, it is not long before more and more people get influenced by this and the problem solves itself eventually.

Here is the link for the experiment.

https://www.dandad.org/awards/profes...ishing-signal/

[shankar.balan]

I am holidaying in Kathmandu at the moment. The traffic is as crowded as it is in India, whether summertime Ooty, Coonoor or Simla or Mussoorie, or Koramangala or Madivala or Kanchipuram or Porur or Coimbatore or Abids Hyderabad or Ghaziabad or Bada Bazaar in Calcutta or Wherever.

The roads are packed with all manner of vehicles in various states of repair and disrepair. Maruti cabs, Santros, ancient vans, mini buses, lorries, jeeps and so on. The conditions are dry and dusty and the sun is rather sharp. The vehicles are parked by the side of the road. People are milling around everywhere.

The roads are narrow and sometimes twisty but overall have good surfaces and no frightful potholes. Some roads are under construction or re-surfacing. There are some construction pillars probably for a flyover or similar but there is no debris and all.

Urban and Semi Urban India by contrast is full of shiny new cars. And frightful road surfaces. And choking dust.

But there is incredible politeness. There is NO HONKING and NO NOISE pollution at all.

The Nepali people are not rough and pushy and loud and full of aggressive behaviour the way we Indians are. They are soft spoken and polite.

[am1m]

Originally Posted by shankar.balan

The Nepali people are not rough and pushy and loud and full of aggressive behaviour the way...

I wouldn't generalize, there will be too many instances of all sorts of behavior. But the rest of your point, I have observed elsewhere too:

Originally Posted by shankar.balan

The roads are packed with all manner of vehicles in various states of repair and disrepair. The vehicles are parked by the side of the road. People are milling around everywhere.

There is NO HONKING....

Yes, lots of other places, some neighborhoods in big cities in in SE-Asia have similar chaotic traffic conditions, yet people don't honk. It's just something that they don't learn while learning to drive. It has nothing to do with overall politeness or anything about their society (because there are enough instances where some of their societies can be pretty aggressive!).

Unfortunately, here we learn that honking is 'necessary' and so we do. Like so many mindless rituals, most of us do it because we're used to it, because the person teaching us told us it is a must. And when told it actually might not be necessary, rationalize the behavior with explanations like chaotic traffic, pedestrians, etc.

Anyway, we don't need to take anyone's word for it- all of us can try driving a day or two in our cities hoking considerably less and see if it actually makes any difference to overall commute time or safety of the drive.

[shibujp]

I have a different take on this. Honking is the easy way out. Honk and push your way forward. When you overtake give a short blast to let the dude know you will pass come what may. If then he proceeds to move keep you hand on the horn till you pass.

Driving without honking means a considerable behavioural change. You need to be more alert, planned and defensive in driving. You need to spot situations developing on the road and preempt your way out of them rather than arrive at the conflagration and honk your way out of it.

I remember an elderly gentleman who came to the Trivandrum team bhp meets long back from Alapuzha...and it was said that the only time he honked was for his security guard to open the gate when he reached home. With experience i too have found that it is very much possible. That said I feel honking has reduced over the years. May be the airbags in the steerings!

Drive on,
Shibu

[EvilZombie]

From what I have observed, our dear cabbies often tend to test the decible limits the horns can breach. I don't blame them as they are often overworked, under paid and lack a good night's rest. This could also possibly explain why they don't use dipper and are always on high beam, even in crawling traffic. They don't need to see the road, just the vehicle in front of them. They are also the brave souls who put on hazzard lights every time it drizzles, to warn everyone that it's raining, in case you missed it.

Another category of offenders are beloved scooters and autos (I don't mean to judge but I will anyway). They have the weirdest fascination for honking, along with the whole array of gymnastics they like to perform on the streets.

However, any of them don't hold a candle to our bus drivers. These are the real world super heroes so you better make way for them. They will honk you, push you out of your lanes, blind you even when coming from behind, and all of this while they enjoy the screams of their passengers and other motorists. The roads would be such a dull place without them.

Being a good citizen, I choose to blame it all on the movies, especially the ones featuring a bald guy playing a badass Mexican street racer who saves the world.

[Sunny_7937]

What I have observed in my area is honking is a way to channelise inner frustration. Be it uncles in their mid 50, working personnel on his way back home from office or cabbies. Just yesterday when I was on my way to drop my brother at the airport, I noticed an uncle in his mid 50, thumb glued onto horn and driving at 40kmph, in a nearly empty highway. May be its just stimulus, absentmindedness etc. And same with the cabbies who expect to be honked before overtaking or else they get agitated. I have found a way around cabbies during evening, what I do is constantly flash upper -dipper multiple times as a sign of alerting. During day, I try to maintain atleast 3m gap for CPA(closest point of approach) while obertaking.