Horn ‘OK’ Please
Honking in India — are we making the right noise?
I am a honkcionado!
I honk pretty much everytime there’s an opportunty when I am driving — in India. Don’t judge me yet! I don’t honk when the signal turns green expecting the cars and the bikes ahead of me to vanish giving me the way all to myself. I don’t even honk in a slow moving traffic to get myself some space to crawl couple of feet ahead. The horn of an automobile has a definitive purpose, of course, yet the need to improvise the definition varies with the environment some of us are in. Let me give you a skinny on the art and subtlety of honking, or the lack thereof.
Honking is a culture thing
It’s not binary — honking or not honking. It’s about the very need to use it in the first place. Something prompt me to honk in India much more often that do not in, say, a developed country. I honk to protect myself from the drivers with no lane discipline, bikers with acrobatic talent, nonchalant jaywalkers, unattended children, relaxing cattle and chasing pets — all of them sharing our streets and roads simultaneously. I honk to protect myself from that speeding automobile blindly entering the arterial road from a lane. I use the horn to protect myself from the unwarned opening of the non-kerbside door of a car in the middle of the road. I use it when I am overtaking a vehicle so that they don’t change their lanes unknowingly, because their ORVMs are either closed for protection from other vehicles on the road or because they just didn’t learn how to use them mirrors. I honk when I see pedestrians mentally prepared to throw themselves in front of my vehicle in order to cross the road, especially when there’s zebra crossing just a few feet away. I honk before taking a blind turn and there are so many around. I honk in the underground parking too as so many of us love to show-off our Hollywood-inspired drifting skills in those compact lanes. Somehow, I think I need to constantly remind other drivers on the road that the roads are public and there are others also around them, including me. Hey listen, I am here!
Horns are annoying
That we all agree. The blaring sound of a horn is never pleasant, especially if it’s not your own! It does sound rude! The alternative way of looking at it is as an automotive feature and making use of any feature or function doesn’t automatically make one rude. I am not rude! It depends why, how, and where we are using it. Let me draw a parallel. It’s just like the high-beam feature of the headlights. It needs to be used but when and how long and how frequent depends on the road and the fellow road users. Don’t ask me how many times I showed my middle-finger into those glaring headlights! Okay, back to sound.
A honk can save a life
I know a lot of people in India who completely stop using the horn once they are ‘awakened’ by their travel to developed countries. I did too! With this change in behaviour we are putting ourselves and the people around us in more danger than what is already there. Let’s accept it, Indian roads are not safe. Check out the statistics provided by WHO and NCRB if you ever doubted it. Hold on! It’s not that grim too. Statistically, India is not the worst country for road accident related deaths. Does that mean we can relax and go on talking about how honking is so uncouth? Let me try to prove my point by being overtly critical. Honking does not kill anyone! So use it to save yourselves as necessary. It just is irritating when unnecessarily or excessively used.
I think therefore I honk
Asking the people of India not to use the horn won’t help us. Honking is an effect, not the cause. If we want to get rid of this effect, we must attack the cause. Just educate everyone who is on the roads — not just once in a lifetime when the driving license is issued but refresh this knowledge on everyday basis or by mobilizing special drives or coming up with a creative awareness campaign. Being punitive won’t help as the masses born and bred here couldn’t even imagine a world without constant honking.
There will be a time in India in the distant future when everyone on road is mature and commits to safe driving, but till then, don’t stop using the ‘horn’ feature just because of an imported inspiration. Let’s not make a ‘cause’ out of it without accepting the culture of our country, no matter how flawed.
If I really want to do something about it, I will make sure that I don’t make a habit out of honking. I won’t just involuntarily honk when I need to slow down to manoeuvre those potholes on the road. I would just think before I honk. Let’s just print some bumper stickers, #ithinkbeforeihonk. Do you?
