Study looks at the when, why and who of honking
Let’s all agree to stop using our horns out of anger, Lorraine Sommerfeld says
If you just cut somebody off in traffic and they laid on their horn, chances are it was a 30-ish male who is less startled than his grandmother when others use their horn, and who really doesn’t want to see fines placed around egregious horn blowing.
Yes, there is a survey about the matter. Kanetix asked Canadians how they feel about their horns, and more importantly, how they feel about others’ horns. When sorted by age, gender and reasonto-honk, that dude I described is the most likely candidate. But only just; it was nearly an even split between men and women using their horn as a first resort.
Kanetix is an insurance website, and a survey around horn honking may seem a little odd, or superficial. But as Janine White, vice-president of Marketplace and Strategy Development explains, “we like to also do lighthearted surveys that are still part of the goal (of ) safer road practices that can reduce insurance costs.”
Awareness and education are ongoing, and as our roads get increasingly more congested, capturing driver behaviour includes, yes, things like how we use our horns.
There are no fines in Canada for using your horn, outside of noise bylaws. But there are in parts of the U.S. and Europe, and the survey showed one in three Canadians would welcome a $350 fine for inappropriate horn blowing. This would be virtually unenforceable, but as White says, just making people more cognizant of the impact of some of the things they do on the road could lead to better outcomes.
About half of those surveyed admitted to having been startled by a horn to the point of agitation, feeling unsafe, or even potentially having it lead to a crash. Almost half — 46 per cent — say they use their horn to signal to a driver making a dangerous move. Maybe, but plunk yourself anywhere there is likely to be a cacophony of horns blowing and I’m going to guess all that honking is more about anger than safety.
Cars are required by law to have horns, and the Ontario Ministry of Transportation (MTO) says they are to be used only to warn someone of an unsafe situation or to blast an animal off the road. You are not supposed to use it in rage or frustration.
The study seems to indicate that patience comes with age: those most likely to honk, in descending order, are millennials and generation Y (59 per cent), generation X (41 per cent), baby boomers (41 per cent) and the silent generation (38 per cent). The aptly named silent generation are those born before 1946. Perhaps not surprisingly, those groups agreeable to putting fines in place run the exact opposite way to those using their horns.
The fallout from being startled by a car horn can run the gamut from being endangered to being annoyed. Honking at cyclists or pedestrians (seven and six per cent of respondents), unless they are about to go under your wheels, is just mean. And the eight per cent who honk to say hello? Don’t do that.
I personally think that everybody should be issued 100 horn honks at birth, and when you’ve used them up, you’re done. We’ve become a culture of the boy who cried wolf, with honking horns meaning everything from “it’s green, idiot” to “can’t you see I’m late?” As we document escalating incidents of road rage, the horn is the only thing most drivers have to express their anger. Thankfully reports like the Quebec man who threatened a family with a chainsaw when they cut him off in a minivan are rare.
While the survey reveals who is doing the honking, and the subject itself isn’t particularly dire, it’s important to consider even these small things. Driving is a team sport, whether you want it to be or not. We’re stuck with each other and every action that makes our roads less safe impacts everybody using them. If half of people get rattled after getting a blast, that’s half of people who are distracted or upset. They might shrug it off or it might sour their day, but it’s not pleasant.
It would be nice if everybody drove perfectly all the time, but that’s never going to happen, and everybody’s idea of “perfect” is different. People who don’t launch off the grid when the light turns green (unless their nose is buried in their phone, then honk away) are actually doing what driving schools teach: pause to make sure nobody is running the red light. Don’t know about where you live, but people run red lights around the clock where I do.
Oh, and a note to people still allowing their car to honk when they lock it: you can disable that. Read your manual or ask your dealer. Your neighbours will thank you.
Noise pollution is a thing, and car horns are awful. Best takeaway from the Kanetix survey? We should listen to our elders and calm down a little.