[evil_grin]

Here’s what a horn is supposed to be used for

warn others of the vehicle’s approach or presence, or to call attention to some hazard.

It’s for emergency use. To prevent a collision.

Here’s what a horn in India is used for

1. Let me go first.
2. Get out of my way.
3. Don’t change lanes to land in front of me.
4. Why have you stopped in traffic?
5. The traffic light turned green 1 second ago.
6. Some other selfish reason

None of these are even important. Forget Emergency.

I find it difficult to fathom how we Indians are generally such gracious hosts at home but such inconsiderate drivers on the road.

How do you make Indians honk less?

1. Education? Through mass awareness campaigns or school education? That is a lot of effort and is unlikely to yield much results too soon.
2. Fines? It’s hard to define improper use of horns. Plus India’s traffic police is already too understaffed.
3. Remove? Can’t remove horns from cars. It’s an essential safety feature.

Here’s my suggestion.

Make the horn harder to press.

That’s all. Make it need say 3x the current amount of pressure to press. Most people dislike putting in too much effort in most things in life. Just making horns harder to press will discourage people from using the horn. And we’ll have less honking. In emergency situations, you’ll still be willing to press it harder.

This can’t be started by one car manufacturer. Because the buyers won’t like it. And it might lead to a reduction of sales. There are only two ways to get it done:

1. The manufacturing companies team up to decide to make the horn harder to press together
2. The government passes regulation to force every manufacturing company to do so.

We’re doing a lot to reduce air pollution from cars. Let’s do the something for noise pollution.


Here are the existing threads related to this:
1 (The horn menace | Indians are honking way too much)
2 (No-Honking days in India)

[praveen789]

I can think of some cases which might not categorise as an emergency at that moment but more precautionary so making it harder to use in these scenarios might lead to an emergency/disaster

1) To awaken jaywalkers deep in their own world while enjoying their music through earphones and strolling on the streets
2) To awaken drivers who you can see drifting lanes from a distance who rarely bother to see in the rear view mirror
3) On a blind curve to warn the other driver

[am1m]

As with everything else, it's going to take a couple of generations. Places like Goa and Mizoram, you'll see drivers not honk and maintain lane discipline (exceptions are there always), that's mainly because they have seen their parents drive without honking. Some parts of Bangalore, I've seen things get slightly better already- still lots of honking, but over the years on the same roads, have seen more drivers every year exercising restraint. The worst is the tier-2 towns where unnecessary honking and loud horns are at really ridiculous levels. The government can do their bit with awareness campaigns and ads featuring celebrities highlighting how stupid and pointless it is to honk in most cases. The fact is most honking is due to driver insecurity or inexperience, and some frustration. Slowly the idea will spread. And also important- crack down on extra-loud horns. (Even on a (supposedly) well-educated forum like this, you'll see several "the horn on my vehicle is not loud enough, can anyone suggest an after-market horn" queries.)

With the advent of EVs and with everything connected, wonder if there is a way to directly reduce the vehicle charge/range each time the horn is pressed and to reduce it dramatically, say if the horn is pressed 'x times in y minutes'. That ought to do the trick!

[Shreyans_Jain]

Horn is a basic safety feature, especially in Indian conditions where ANYTHING can happen at any time. I strongly disagree with any suggestions to make the horn inaccessible or hard to press or anything like. It needs to be pressed instantly, as a reflex action.

All that needs to be done is that the correct usage of horn needs to be taught during driver training. Our new driver training systems are improving, slowly we’ll get there.

As for noise pollution, I’d rather have stricter norms for two wheelers, the single biggest group of road users. Every time an Activa crosses by, I am surprised by how loud the engine is.

[DicKy]

Originally Posted by evil_grin

Here’s my suggestion.Make it need say 3x the current amount of pressure to press...Because the buyers won’t like it. And it might lead to a reduction of sales.

Newer horn pads are already harder to press. Not just in positioning, but also the effort to press. Add to that the newest cars have a stupid clickety sound before the horn is even heard. Ofcourse, India has a good number of idiots who has to press the horn every 15-30 seconds even if there is no one else around them for a good 100metres. But we should also see the root causes of why people are forced to honk on our roads!

Originally Posted by praveen789

1) To awaken jaywalkers deep in their own world while enjoying their music through earphones and strolling on the streets
2) To awaken drivers who you can see drifting lanes from a distance who rarely bother to see in the rear view mirror

True. For our roads, even a delay of a second in sounding the horn would mean one would end up in a fender bender or worse hitting a motorcyclist or a jaywalker.

[Hayek]

Think fines are the way to go. The fact is that there is almost no circumstance in which honking is justified. If there are “Jay Walkers”, it’s because we have no footpaths - so cars should wait for them to pass. If someone is changing lanes, slow down. I do agree we need to fine folks who drive with the lane marking as a central axis, but that is no reason to honk.

We should probably insist on horns being linked to fast tag - if you honk once, pay ₹50; honk twice in a minute, pay ₹500 and so on.

[drsachin]

Fines may be a solution in Mumbai but not in Delhi NCR.
In Delhi the biggest problem is two wheelers and three wheelers who have absolutely no regard for rest of the traffic. They neither follow lanes nor redlights. I think 90% of two wheelers don't even view their rear view mirrors before changing lanes. The only deterrent they have is the honking by the car, who warns them not to change lane. If the person who is driving the car don't honk or don't slow down ,it's a recipe for sure shot accident. Irony is a large number of these two wheeler drivers either don't wear even a helmet or the helmet is just a showpiece with no real protection.
These two wheelers are so brave that they regularly enter even expressways where it's clearly prohibited.

I have rarely seen any traffic police stopping these errant drivers for challans.

If one has to check the recklessly with which these two wheelers and three wheelers drive, just go to stretch from Cannaught place to Moti nagar, following pusa road. There are redlights at every 100meters. And no two wheeler or three wheeler stop at redlights. And they keep changing lanes juggling between cars like zombies.

[riturajsharma19]

It depends. I will give you a few scenarios where there might not be another alternative to the horn-

1. You are on the rightmost lane on the highway and there are a group of idiots waiting at the median to run across. You use the horn to warn them so that you can pass by before they jump onto the road.
2. You are in your car and right ahead a couple of bicyclists are riding parallelly while talking to each other and completely oblivious to what's behind. What would you do?
3. A huge herd of cattle on the highway, blocking all the lanes. Would you get out of your car and shoo them away or simply honk?

Where I live and drive, these are far too common scenarios. The horn is arguably a safety feature on certain occasions.

[Kosfactor]

Treatment is needed for Hyperacusis (disorder of loudness perception) , leave the poor automobile alone.

Some European cars I have driven have ridiculously hard to press horn pads, they are a safety hazard.

If you see a nice big highway with low to moderate traffic, hardly anyone uses a horn, its in City traffic where people tend to happily lane hop and obstruct traffic etc where horn usage is more.

Of course there are well meaning people who think its their duty to warn everything on the road all the time about their presence but those are exception than the norm, even those who are in a tearing hurry to get somewhere and leans on the horn pad is also an exception than the norm.

I drive a canvas top Jeep through the breadth of BLR`s CBD and I can hear everything, including conversations of other motorists, I am not at all sensitive to horn but my better half will roll down the window and give them an earful.

As drivers get more educated, they tend to be more considerate about such things like noise pollution, manners etc and mend their behavior - talking about those who honk excessively.

[Oppanna]

We live in such a world that certain people feel that the vehicle will not move ahead without using the horn.

I would say use horn diligently and not as a mandatory feature. However honking is absolutely necessary when you overtake a vehicle ( just one or two press on the horn pad) which is enough to notify the other person that someone is trying to

[dass]

Another option is to link it to the fuel consumption, again needs to be across manufacturers. Every press of a horn, somehow needs to consume some amount of fuel, and that will surely get people to think twice before pressing on that horn. Fines, harder to press or access all have workarounds to be avoided. Nothing else, probably will ever work except for a generational shift, that might happen 2 or 3 generations later.

[Sran]

Fine two-wheelers driving on right lanes like there is no tomorrow. Most of the car honking is to ask for side from them. Ban slow moving automobiles like e-rickshaws on main roads, they are an infestation. Ideally they should ply only on branch roads and mohallas. Remove vegetable sellers and fruit sellers from roads, shift them to their specific markets, if there isn't one built them, if thats not possible ask them to go sell house to house instead of standing at one place. Stop giving permits to autos, imo there are now enough auos in every Indian city. Fine them heavily for stopping anywhere other than shoulder of the road for passenger's ingree or egress. Fine pedestrians who cross roads from anywhere other than designated crosswalks. Ban jugad thelas(load carriers) outright without any penance. In my city car drivers honk the least, and mostly due to the mayhem caused by two-wheelers, generator fitted ape and piaggio 3 wheelers and road side vendors.

To sum it up, non- taxpayers are making life hell for taxpayers on roads.

[Aagi_88]

Here’s what a horn in India is used for

• Let me go first.
• Get out of my way.
• Don’t change lanes to land in front of me.
• Why have you stopped in traffic?
• The traffic light turned green 1 second ago.
• Some other selfish reason

I feel this is only one side of a coin let me show another side to it

• People crossing on the roads even when signal is green
• People crossing the roads even in the absence of zebra crossing ( not to mention most of them talking on the phone )
• Rickshaw drivers coming from the left most lane and taking a u turn
• Trucks occupying all the lanes on the highway trying to overtake which takes its own sweet time
• 2 wheelers riding with one hand and holding phone and talking with another
• Car drivers driving in first lane at their own speed rather then giving way to others
• People driving with one hand holding the phone talking to someone and totally unaware of the surroundings.

I am not in favour of honking but there’s definitely lot of factors which are unavoidable and totally not in the hands if the driver.

So rather then making any changes to car or charging the driver for honking i feel making driving test stringent, harsh penalties for law breakers and social awareness for citizens of all age.

[anjan_c2007]

India has been a country where a driver has to honk to make his way through unruly traffic be it a 2 or 4 wheeler. In most crowded and even non crowded roads, the law of the jungle prevails.

Gentlemen (ladies too no gender bias here) drivers will never honk if the traffic is not unruly, but will if he/she senses something wrong with safety on the location.

Whereas, unruly drivers honk needlessly everytime, everywhere and anywhere.

Gadkari's recent suggestion to use horns with Indian instrument renditions has been dumped by car makers silently. In fact, these sounds would have compounded the honking nuisance.

Though India is among the top five car makers in the world, it could become the country ( or it could have already become) where horn maker's make the most money from OE and aftermarket horn sales in the whole world.

[airguitar]

Drastic problems need drastic solutions. Drastic problem here = Chaotic roads. Drastic( er..) solution here is to honk. It serves a purpose.

Jokes aside, Bangalore honking situation has improved quite a bit, definitely. You don't find too many people blowing their guts out through the horns. Not sure why, perhaps they are too busy on their phones, scrolling through the timeline of a failed bollywood starlet or that of an arrogant startup founder or looking through their whatsapp forwards. But honking certainly has gone down in Bangalore, barring the odd executive with a big car and a bigger ego or a taxi driver running late.