Occasionally when you’re driving, you’ll make a mistake and perhaps need to adjust and it can create some awkward situations. Like today, my dad ended up in the wrong lane to go straight instead of turn at a light. He had to cut in line to make sure we could go the right way. It’d be nice if we could communicate “sorry, I screwed up. Excuse me. I just need to slip in there.”
Right now all we have for inter car communication is the horn, which has kind of an aggressive implication to it. This is for trying to de-escalate potential road rage.
genius
You deserve to be able to retire after someone from Shark Tank takes your idea and makes it mandatory on all vehicles.
“Way to go, A-hole!”
They could have a little beep, like some cars do when you lock them. Made relatively quiet with the double beep further differentiating from a regular honk.
A quiet sound won’t be audible in other cars most of the time, especially when the windows are closed.
Whatever sound it makes would have to be very distinctive and not leave any room for interpretation.
Fart sound is good enough.
Ope! Ope! Ope!
womp womp
I would use this when I see someone do something stupid, like clipping the curb, that doesn’t deserve an angry honk.
It’s not the horn itself but how it’s used.
Long blast = angry Two quick bips = not angry One bip = I’m just letting you know I’m here
Two long blasts - The El Dude Brothers
Big Beats are the best, get high all the time
I don’t know if it’s my car or me, but I’ve always find very difficult to modulate my horn, like if I try to have it do bips, they don’t come out, I need to really punch it which means they won’t be quickly one after the other. I need more horn practice.
There are some horns that are just impossible to modulate the length of. Dodge for sure has this problem as the direct to horn wiring is gone. They now run the horn through the body control module. The physical tap of the horn is now lost essentially as it instructs the horn to sound off for its predetermined amount of time. No polite nips of horn sound to wake a driver at a light, but a full on FU to get going!
There are more tech devices to buy that help with this stupidity that tech has created. Progress?
What if its La Cucaracha?
Everybody has to get out of their cars and dance!
Usage is also country specific. Different countries use different horn communication
I like it when the long blast is 5 seconds plus, I can’t not find that funny
i find that plunging my face into a custard pie has the same effect
Is this finally the day I get to trot out my recollection of the “Hey Horn” commercials from the early aughts?
This was, alas, a spoof. But the idea was there.
As humans usually want to express quite complex things but have already developed a tried and tested method to communicate a lot of these complex things, I’d say we just enable voice for inter car communication by equipping every car with a huge megaphone on its roof that can be accessed from any seat inside.
Palace Hotel Ballroom… One Night Only
Hey you, on the bike!
Oh yeah that definitely won’t get abused
Happened to me yesterday, actually, that a large truck stopped suddenly at the end of an intersection and I, behind them, had to stop in the intersection without knowing when or if we’d move again since I couldn’t see anything ahead of the truck. A good seven or so seconds later and the light turned yellow so I had to cut to the right (mostly parking) lane to avoid gridlock. Went ahead a few cars to an opening to get back into a driving lane, cutting ahead a little.
My “I’m sorry” horn is really just my shy hand wave out my window though. I don’t use AC nor have tinted windows so I think they generally see how I feel, I think. More often than not, it’s a “thank you” horn though, as people often have to let me out of my own driveway since I live on a major street and there is rarely a time there aren’t cars idling outside waiting for a light.
Three or four blinks of the four-way / hazard lights is commonly used as “Thank you”. That would be appropriate for someone who let you in.
I’ve only seen that in Eastern Europe, but as both a “thank you” and also “oh, shit, sorry.”
Western Europe too. But then again there are a lot of eastern European truck drivers here.
I have never heard of this and would genuinely think the person was having an issue. Where I’m from people just put a hand up as a wave. You lower most of your fingers if they tried to cut you off.
It’s common in the USA, especially amongst truckers, where you can’t see the hand wave.
If a trucker in Australia put on their hazards I’d be getting the fuck out of the way or given them some room because some shit was about to go down, you know, like a hazard.
The way people communicate in cars using hazard lights is country specific usually in my experience.
I’ve noticed some small number of people here (Australia) turning them on when they break hard but I think that might be something that model of car does automatically when you jump on the anchors.
It’s pretty common in Palestine, not sure about other Arab countries.
You lower most of your fingers if they tried to cut you off.
I love how you phrased this.
Hmm, I thought this was more common, is it not used in the states or something? Not seeing it anywhere near as much as I was expecting to in this thread. Far as I know this is the standard everyone uses, but I guess not “everyone” everyone.
Lived in the states my entire life. Never heard of that.
I’ve seen turning your headlights/running lights off and on in the US for a “sorry/thanks”. I haven’t seen hazards used for that ever
It’s not a thing in the States at all. There’s zero use of the hazard lights other than to indicate your car is having problems and you need to pull over, or you’re parking (poorly, usually) and will be right back.
it gets used when approaching stopped traffic on a freeway so cars behind you can brake earlier
Oh, yeah, I guess so. I’ve done that a few times when I was pulling up to the back of the traffic.
It is common in the States, especially amongst truckers.
*sad trombone noises"
A bike bell?
“A bad driver never misses their exit”
Sometimes you make a mistake and miss your exit or end up in the wrong lane. That’s on you. Re-route, follow the lane you’re in, take the next safe turn/exit/lane change to get back on track; you don’t just cut in line, forcing others to correct for your own mistakes. That’s a great way to create unsafe conditions, end up in accidents, and hurt people. It’s not just about peoples ego/anger, it’s genuinely dangerous.
Your father doesn’t need a ‘sorry’ button, he needs to correct his poor driving behaviour and not endanger himself, you, or others on the road.
Driving involves a lot of soft decisions. Any action can be risky, even a regular lane change. But we still do lane changes all the time. Ultimately it’s up to us to judge.
Point is, I think there are cases where making a last minute lane change can be totally safe, eg if the cars in the other lane are already stopped.
if it was totally safe then there’s nothing to apologize for
There are many things in life that are inconvenient to others without harming them
What causes accidents are not the cars and conditions you see, but the ones you don’t.
Humans aren’t machines, they make mistakes. And cars have a lot more blind spots than we realize.
That’s why we have rules. If we are predictable and follow the rules, even when we don’t see anything that could stop us from taking a shortcut, then we’re being considerably safer.
Keep in mind that, on the road, it’s not just your own safety you need to ensure. An accident can also harm other people, so the more reason to prevent them.
You hit on another driving quote I love:
“Don’t be courteous, be predictable.”
But driving rules are not precise. For example, when doing a lane change, how much space should you have in the lane you are entering? It’s entirely up to us to judge.
So obviously don’t drive on the wrong side of the road whenever you feel like it, but if you for example want to squeeze into a lane of stopped cars (while your lane is also stopped), I don’t see the issue
in my state the driver manual specially states to change lanes with enough space that you can see both in your rear view mirror both headlights of the car your getting in front of
You need 2 seconds between every vehicle, and to be able to fully see the vehicle in front of you. When changing lane, you need to fully see the vehicle in your side mirror, center mirror if it’s a truck.
Come on people, that’s all in the paper exam for your licence.
It is all prescribed in the rules, they are precise. Even if they aren’t precise, the judiciary decides what the rules mean, law has no ambiguity, and if there is, the ambiguity is resolved by a judge.
Judges disagree all the time and then it gets decided by the highest appellate court, potentially with a split vote.
The laws are not perfect by any means.
I didn’t say they are perfect, but they are in the end absolute.
They can change over time, but at any moment there will be an absolute decision.
Cutting in line is not against the law though. It’s just considered rude, which is why OP wants a “sorry” honk
There is a culture problem if a legal safe move is considered rude.
Traffic is giving and taking responsibly.
Yeah. My dad is an atrocious driver who has gotten lucky so far.
I’m the great driver I am because my dad is just like that.
He’s a shining example of what not to do.
How does your comment have so many upvotes when it doesn’t address the actual topic about a new horn sound at all? It’s just finger wagging.
A good example of why humanity is doomed: people are shackled to their reflexive need to jerk off their egos at any and every opportunity they see rather than focus on thinking.
Instead of addressing the horn sound itself, I’ve addressed the underlying need/desire for it.
Addding a sorry button wouldn’t make things safer or chill tempers, it’d just empower more people to make dangerous moves; playing it off as fine because ‘I pressed the sorry button, people should be ok with me endangering them’
The rules of the road exist for good reason. When people don’t follow them, it effects more than just themselves and has cost many people their lives through no fault of their own.
Be a better driver; don’t make others pay for your poor planning and judgement.
Even OP appears to agree with this, given their reply and upvote on my comment.
A good example of why humanity is doomed: people are shackled to their reflexive need to jerk off their egos at any and every opportunity they see rather than focus on thinking.
An interesting double-standard you have there.
Implying I’m somehow a bad person for pointing out and discussing the consequences of these choices instead of just patting OP on the back and agreeing with their desire - without actually providing any meaningful counter argument to what I’ve said.
If the OP had only written “Horns should come equipped with different sounds to better communicate with other drivers”, which is the overarching gist of what they were musing, the thread would be different. But they added the story which prompted the thought. Instead of considering the benefits, or even drawbacks, of the proposed suggestion- you fixated on the story itself, seeing a great opportunity to interject some moralizing and also indirectly boast to the rest of the readers about what a good driver you think you are. There’s nothing to debated about what you wrote, everything you said is correct.
But it’s easy to admonish others opening up to explain a mistake by clubbing them with an imagined perfect scenario.
Should all people be better drivers? Yes, of course. Is that realistic? No. And is it really related to the actual proposal the OP opined on? Very tentatively.
Also, I certainly don’t think you are a bad person. A very human person. Just like me. And all the upvoters who are now thinking “Yeah, OP’s dad should be a better driver! And thinking that makes me feel better about myself” instead thinking about auditorial communication.
In my country it is forbidden to use your horn unless there is a dangerous situation.
That is the thinking. It’s like when a couple fights about something small like how much salt is in the meatloaf, but that’s not actually the reason they’re mad at each other. In school, they call this “critical thinking.”
Yeah, yeah. The older I get the more I have ‘old man yells at clouds’ moments. This was one of them.
Came here to drop that same quote. 🫡
1000% don’t make others pay for your mistake.
I’ve thought of this before and it’s kind of crazy that we have so many hand gestures to insult and express anger from a distance, but not really anything to say sorry, or apologize.
