Skip to content

GRINDING GEARS: Excessive honking a great way to let people know you are a jerk

Car horns have changed a lot over the years. The people who use them ... not so much
Horn
Car horns have changed a lot over the years.

This week, while merging into traffic just west of Lonsdale, I was honked at angrily by a large truck.

If I’m honest, the sound wasn’t all that startling. While the rest of the traffic was happily zipper-merging together at the typically slow speeds of weekday morning traffic, the truck in question was trying to close up any gap. Why? Well, because they’d then be one more car-length behind, which is of course the end of the world to what must surely have been a contending driver for the next Canadian grand prix. I detected a certain amount of this me-first syndrome, and sure enough along came the expected toot of impotent rage.

Startling, no, annoying yes. While there are legal rules set out for proper traffic behaviour, concerning right-of-way and whatnot, the actual flow of traffic operates on a more informal social contract. Moving out of the passing lane to allow faster traffic to pass is not commonly enforced, but polite and attentive drivers try to do so. Slowing in a line of stop-and-go traffic to wave ahead a driver turning out of a side street isn’t required by law, but does make everyone’s life easier.

Honking your horn is often a way to express dismay that said social contract has not been adhered to. It’s also sometimes just an expression of frustration that gets up everyone’s nose and makes the honker look like an idiot.

It would be nice to be able to say that aggravated tootling was a new phenomenon, but it’s of course been part of our motoring history ever since the very first horseless carriages arrived. We’ve had horns since the mid-1800s, although they weren’t called horns back then. We called them Tim, or Fred, or Baldrick. In the very earliest days of the automobile, British motoring law insisted that any car be preceded by a hired pedestrian waving a flag and blowing a warning horn.

Cars were, thankfully, relatively rare then, so it’s not like many of the local yeomanry were so-employed. As the motorcar advanced, however, and began to become more common (and faster), some kind of device was needed to let everyone know that a car was on the way. It says a great deal about the human experience that automotive braking technology developed at a far slower pace than engine power and yelling at people to get out of the way.

Some of the earliest horns were of the manual variety, fitted with a bulb that the driver squeezed. The overall effect isn’t exactly strident – it sounds a bit like Donald Duck about four hours after eating a can of beans.

Another option was the exhaust-gas operated horn, one of which was called The Gabriel, after the arch-angel. You could also buy a horn called the Sireno, which boasted a range of more than a mile. Another, the Godwin, had the slogan, “press as you steer and your path becomes clear.”

There are, I’m sad to say, more than a few people who still adhere to that sort of driving attitude. When the klaxon came along – the aooogah that all old-timey films seem to feature – newly-minted drivers simply laid on the horn and hoped you could jump out of the way fast enough.

The modern horn is a more pleasing affair, mostly a two-tone chime that’s intended to send an alert without piercing the eardrum or peeling the skin from your skull. Most produce around 100 decibels, with a train horn approximately 50 per cent louder.

Horn use tends to cover a spectrum, from the Only One Honk types, to the New York Experience. In the former, a lifetime of silence behind the wheel might be broken only by a single frustrated beep as someone does something particularly stupid. For the latter, the horn is a way to say Hello! How goes it! Look at me! Is that the new Mustang! I like your baby! Sorry about making your baby cry! Well, it was a pretty ugly baby anyway! and so on.

Everyone else falls roughly in the middle. However, there are nuances for the skilled horn users among us. The Canadian Double Tap is a unique horn use which is intended to convey polite attention-getting without causing aggravation. Use when passing up your right of way to keep traffic moving.

Then there’s the Come On The Light’s Gone Green, which has a sliding scale: a light tap if the driver ahead is staring out the window, a full on benchpress if they’re surreptitiously checking their text messages.

All of the above have their uses. However, I’ve also noticed that there’s more than a little impatient use of the horn in traffic, especially by people who should really pay more attention. Often, a driver will slow for a pedestrian, or a bicycle, or just because there’s the potential for a confusing situation to get dangerous. Very common is people getting honked at for not turning into an intersection because they’re waiting for a pedestrian to cross (which the other driver can’t see, perhaps being a bit too much in a rush).

Which is why, at last, I’m announcing my impending patent for the most important invention to improve the automobile since the steering wheel: the rear-facing car horn. Think about it. Modern cars may be electric. They may have to contend with autonomous vehicles, and they may have to share space with crowd-shared electric scooters or increased bicycle traffic.

But one thing that will not change, at least until the controls of the automobile are completely in robotic control, is that certain people will use their horns when they shouldn’t. And, while I’m all for civilized motoring, with understanding and kindness for every road user, I hardly need tell you how delightful it would be to blister the paint off the hood of some honk-happy idiot by the application of a rear-mounted sonic weapon. Honk if you must, but don’t be surprised if we honk back.

Brendan McAleer is a freelance writer and automotive enthusiast. If you have a suggestion for a column, or would be interested in having your car club featured, please contact him at mcaleeronwheels@gmail.com. Follow Brendan on Twitter: @brendan_mcaleer.