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(Don't) honk if you hate car horns
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I interrupt this stream of scholarly, informed, well-balanced posting for a special rant.
If you are in a car behind me when I am on my bicycle, and you honk your horn, I will immediately begin to hate you.
This goes double if the horn is leaned upon, and treble if the din is coupled with you pressing on the gas and passing me—in the same lane—with inches to spare. You are then awarded quadruple buttmunch points if I find you to have pulled into a parking spot not more than a block or two away. (This actually happened.) It's not just the cops that can see license plates, my friends. We're watching.
Stereotypes have to start from somewhere, and I know one of the prevalent ones is that people drive like idiots in this city and you can hear the horn screeches from space. But just because the stereotype exists doesn't make it justified to perpetuate. Ask any cyclist, and not just in New York: the rudest thing to do is to honk at one from behind. I say rudest (and not “most dangerous,” though it can indeed be dangerous) because it is deliberate, not an accident. It is the traffic etiquette equivalent of cutting in line, only it would be more like cutting in line when you are right behind the person who is at the cash register and about to order their coffee, then yelling in their ear, taking the last chocolate muffin that they were about to get, and eating it in front of them while spraying crumbs into their hair.
When I took driver's ed in high school, the instructor told us that horns are in cars to warn other drivers of danger. Period. Just because you honk, it will not mean that I (or other vehicles) will go faster. It better not mean that I have to get out of the way because you're impatient, because odds are I will be so jarred by the honking that I will not want to move, and may obstinately further obstruct your efforts to pass by taking up even more space in the lane.
As this fantastic article remarks, the inclusion of horns may be “facilitating certain road mishaps by shifting the burden of evasion from the honker to the honkee.” I refuse to be responsible for the shoddy motor skills and quick temper of the school bus driver who blasted his horn and then sped up behind me, with no intention to slow unless I moved. (This actually happened.) What's more, I shouldn't have to. I'm no better and no worse than any vehicle on the road; I have as much a right to be there as speeding cabbies that open their doors into traffic. If you want to pass, go right ahead. There are three other lanes to play with; take your pick. Is your turn on the next block? Deal with it. We're almost there.
It's as dangerous a mentality as a schoolyard bully bellowing, “I'm gonna punch you,” then, after he breaks your nose and gives you a wedgie that only a mother could excavate, he whines that he's not responsible because he warned you he was going to hit you. It is gross avoidance of responsibility, especially when a two-ton vehicle is involved. A U.K. Institute of Traffic Accident Investigators study showed that people take 2-3 time as long to honk than to brake or steer. So not only can we drive more safely, and not only is it easier, but people choose not to, and shuffle the blame onto those “in their way.”
Car horns are, when abused in instances such as the above mentioned, as obnoxious as they were in 1935. So if you are behind me and you feel the need to honk because you're in some damn hurry, I have one word to say to you. Well, more like two or more, and if you're really curious you can try it some day because they're not words that Examiner will allow me to print, and if you push me to the point where I reveal them, they will likely be accompanied by some spittle and an obscene gesture. Might as well go for the full package. Just make sure it's me and not someone else, because if you mess with the wrong person, you might get all that and your mirror knocked off, too.*
*(This happens regularly, though I have never done it myself. I do not advise anyone to break the law or damage others' property, and I ask you to also consider that breaking off side mirrors will hurt your hand. Please stick to obscenities, loogies, and middle fingers. Thank you, and ride safe.)
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