The Honkback
The car horn was designed as a warning system and has been regulated, by law, to be used as such. Yes, despite the friendly intentions of a horn tap in front of your friend’s house, technically that is a violation.
Nonetheless, we have come to utilize the horn as a form of greeting (such as in the case of arriving at a friend’s house). Often it is used as an attention getter, say for example, when you spot your neighbor singing to themselves in the car next to you. You want to get their attention so that they will turn and, hopefully, blush as they realize that you have witnessed their secret rock star desires. In the 80’s the car horn was given a new role as thief deterrent. But that annoyance was soon ignored as people realized that it proved to be little more than an expensive car locator when you have forgotten where you parked it. For those of us in Southern California the car horn, thanks to the car alarm sensitivity, became a confirmation sound following an earthquake. When your shaking bed would wake you in the middle of the night you would listen for distant car alarms to clarify whether you were dreaming or had just experienced a mild earthquake.
But nowadays, the car horn has become more of an audible backtalk. Yesterday, I was driving down the road when a car began to pull out into the road from a supermarket parking lot. The driver was distracted by the pesky inconvenience of dialing their cellphone and thus was not paying attention to the road. Utilizing the car horn for its original intent, I gave a toot. It was not a lay-it-on, drawn out, aggravated assault, but it also wasn’t a barely-detectable tap of the horn. No, this was the kind of horn honk that Goldilocks could appreciate: just right. The driver, startled by my accident-avoiding honk swerved slightly but continued to proceed out in front of me. As a reward for my gift of preventing the driver from receiving an insurance premium rate hike for careless driving, I instead recieved a honkback. That’s right. I was honked back! For what? I averted the collision. I returned the other driver’s focus to the road where it belongs. And for that I got a honkback.
Clearly, this was not the intention of the mastermind behind the invention of the automotive horn. The honkback is a rather ugly sound. And unwarranted, I might add.
The next time you are driving and someone honks at you, pause and assess the situation first before delivering an unnecessary, (most likely) unwarranted, and unfriendly honkback. And ask yourself: Were you in the wrong? Were you distracted? Were you in a rush and thus inadvertently cut off the driver? Even if you were in the right, be the bigger person and don’t use the honkback. Think of your restraint as your contribution to the reduction of noise pollution. And remember, enjoy the ride.
