My opnion. No, I am not one of those who honk unnecessarily. But there are situations which demand that I do.

1. I am doing highspeeds on highway & I see a vehicle/person about to/thinking of crossing the road. I will blow horn (on & off) alongwith flash just to secure his/her/driver's attention. (High probability of the vehicle/person crossing the road without even judging the oncoming traffic)

2. A car/vehicle has stopped in mid of the road without any reason though there are plenty of space on the left shoulder & it's blocking the passage. I blow horn alongwith flash to grab his attention.


I guess these are two occassions in which I do HONK. In most cases, I blow the horn but not Honk (Hope everyone agrees there is a difference in two). Now, there is a reason why I have to honk on those two above mentioned scenarios. This is India. People are highly illeterate in road etiquettes.

+1... Me too

Mathews

Definitely I support blowing the horn especially for two wheelers.
Why I say this??
Because 2 wheelers are always at the mercy of others. No matter how safe we ride or what all safety gear we use, our ride has only 2 wheels and its easy to fall down even if somebody just brushes us.
So riders are always at a risk.
Another point is some people just don't see the 2 wheelers as its small and dont have the road presence compared to other vehicles.
In India the pedestrians can cross wherever they wish. They usually stop when they see a 4 wheeler coming but some think they can outrun a 2 wheeler and just cross the road. Think of the plight of a fast moving rider. Even if he hit the brakes hard, chances are very high that he may skid and hit the tarmac.
Again the rider is at a loss.
Blowing the horn can be very much avoided if you are going at, let me say about 40 KMPH as it gives ample time to react to the situation. But how many riders can go at that speed.
While overtaking the horn is a must as most drivers don't give a damn about 2 wheelers.
I have experienced that if you go too slow also it may result in tailgating. So we have to maintain an average speed of other vehicles.
That's all about human beings, its better not to talk about cattle and stray dogs.
So the conclusion is riders should use the horn whenever its necessary for their own dear life.


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This is a good amount of co incidence here. It was just today I was thinking about this. I was not using much horn today. Had a few calls, though not close ones. A clumsy woman with both her feet off the footboard on a Wego was making advances into my lane , coming in from a gap in the divider. I assumed she will travel straight forward so didnt not honk, decided to pass from her left as she was very slow in the fast lane. I suddenly found her bike very close to mine as I was passing by. Yes, she wanted to cross the road. Had I honked she would have stopped. Needed an extra amount of swerve to avoid her.Happened in a city street. Coming back home, all the 3 lanes on the National Highway were clogged. A splendor was trying to overtake a truck who was trying to overtake the other,thus occupying all the lanes. At 50 kmph. Finishing the overtaking, the Splendor stuck firmly in the fast lane at crawling speeds. If I were to change the lane and overtake him, I would have faced a potential hazard from the vehicles coming from behind. So had to honk a lot to make him change the lane.
If I need to honk , at all, I use short bursts successively and continuously, rather than a prolonged press of the button.
It is very true that some people honk unnecessarily. Most of them are those who do not have an enough motor control on riding and driving. Hence, panicking, they blow a long fat burst of beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep which is very irritating and harmful for the ears.

I too, do the same and I find it more effective to get attention than a long continuous honk and irritating others.



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In the context of India this question takes a whole new meaning. In 'developed' countries honking might attract most people to choose option number two. In India it is a way of life on the road. Foreigners often mention that they are surprised how the number of accidents seem to be so less given the chaos on Indian roads (they should count the number of accidents by trying to identify the cars without dents and subtracting them from the set of cars who have just received dent surgery minus cars just of the showroom, they will be able to count the cars never in an accident on the tips of their fingers).

So honking is necessary, many generations in India have perhaps developed their hearing into a super-faculty that is nothing short of a sixth sense on the road. No honk means the way is clear. So to save yourself and others on the road le-Honk is ze most important thing.

If the police wants to ban or lessen horns they must ingrain a sense of lane driving and etiquette into the grossly uncivilized species that we are on the roads.

No point is blowing the smoke in another direction when the fire still burning. Nevertheless, commendable effort.

A few days back I was driving my car through the streets of Pune with an Ex-Army officer travelling shotgun who insisted that I shouldn't use the horn AT ALL!! He wanted me to try it out for a change so I did.

The result was that,
1. We could never travel faster than 40odd kmph
2. Whoever I *somehow* overtook (girls on scooters / people on commuter motorcycles etc.) was shocked to see a car suddenly coming alongside *out of nowhere*
3. There were more than a couple of cars who wanted to cut into my lane *after* I had come alongside because they plainly failed to notice a 4.4 meter sedan driving alongside!!
4. Pedestrians would continue crossing the road in the middle of few of the busiest intersections in all of Pune as if taking a stroll in the park. Their strolls (and conversations) in the middle of the road would continue undisturbed since they knew I had no urgency to move ahead (since I didn't honk!)

And all of the above happened in just one frustrating afternoon of driving.

In India, people expect the person overtaking to Honk. It is a valid communication channel to communicate with the vehicle in front. If you stop honking, there won't be any communication which will lead to even more chaos than what we already have. The best we can do is try to minimize it and keep those beeps as short as possible. You can easily do without honking on the Highway but IMHO it is practically impossible to eliminate it completely in the cities.

For keeping garden-strolling pedestrians at bay, keeping the headlamps on is a way, insists a magazine. I feel that revving the engine up[not too high] instead of honking does work, after having an experience in college, where a group of girls was talking bang in the center of campus road. With superbikes, this may work on chaotic roads too, the blip sounding very devilish

Major accidents are considerably fewer, given the chaos on the roads in India the main reason for this. is the relatively slow speeds we drive, having spent most of my life in Europe, I found and still find driving in India a comical (and very frustrating) ballet, you never know whether to laugh, cry or slap somebody. I do use my horn far more than I would like to, if i pass a person on a two wheeler who is on their mobile while riding, I will pass them slowly and honk multiple times, then there's the random pedestrians who appear almost from nowhere in front of you, buses without signals and brake lights, vehicles on the wrong side of the road (with arrogance) Bottom line you have no choice to honk. Although there are drivers who just randomly honk every few hundred metres, whether they're in a desert or city. Noise pollution will be here forever, I guess we're immune to it to a degree.

Well I was using the flasher quite liberally, but to no avail. Pune, my friend, is vastly unlike Nasik .

And as for revving up the engine, it only works on bikes. The 220 roar has had plenty of people jumping for cover over the years. But cars sadly don't have that luxury.

I guess that I am one of the few people who rarely ever uses the horn. I rather concentrate all my mental and physical faculties on controlling the brakes and throttle, than giving even an iota of importance to the horn.

Also on many occasions I have noticed traffic and pedestrians making sudden and frightening changes in direction when they hear the horn. This forces me also to make sudden changes in direction to avoid running them over.

Moral of the story, when on a motorcycle, I avoid honking.

Even I agree and follow the above. But my point above was that there are many more road users which are not motorcycle rider. And they might have much more difficulty in maintaining safety on the roads, if they don't honk.

Enjoy driving

Very true, most of the quarrels after a collision would have these words "You didn't honk, so I never knew you are coming". Well the important point here to notice is, many of us get our licenses back door, i.e. with out reading the rules of the road. When I was in California, the first book that I had to read between covers was the 'Driving license manual'. I still remember all the rules of CA driving license. We here in India give license to people for money, nobody knows any rules. Not even some basic stuff like 'right of way'.

We need to fix that first. Pedestrians, obviously don't need a license, but there needs to be a way of educating them, also most of our signals don't have pedestrian cycles, even if its there, the zebra would be blocked by vehicles, and in some highways we expect them to 'walk' for 2 km take a signal, cross and come back... hope
you take the point.. we need to improve infrastructure in over head bridges etc. Long way to go! until then our Savior is the 'horn''.

I Hate Unnecessary Honkers -

1) Those who are riding above the legal speed limit and honking what comes in front!! I ride above the legal speed limit most of the times, but when I see a slow driver/rider I just slow down, make an overtaking move and speed up again.
Sometimes I encounter bikers who honk others unnecessarily and I keep riding at my speeds and overtake them without honking anyone.. especially him!
2) If I encounter any unnecessary honker, I forgive him for his first two horns but if he continues.. I follow him (no matter what his speed - even as low as 30 km/hr)with my horns blowing till he realises he was at mistake. Done it with Innovas and the like.. when the person rolls down the window to have a chat I just tell him you can drive at 80 without honking

I rode my bike at high speeds even when the horn was not working. This happened for a lot of kilometers (cant remember, but more than 1000 kms of city commuting). Its an excellent way to learn to ride very cautiously.

I forgot to honk on many occasions after this horn malfunctioning episode. Its a habit.. if you keep honking, you would continue in non hazardous situation. But if you dont honk at all.. you will forget honking.

As per my experience on road here is the list of situation where I honk.

1) Cautioning pedestrians who are about to cross the road before I can slow down.
2) Vehicles which are coming in your lane and did not notice that you are at high speed.
3) If you are very fast and about to overtake a vehicle from very close.(I was riding very normally with my 2.5 year old kid sitting in front when a white RTR overtook my bike at 80 km/hr from as close as a inch or two between his and my handle.. It shook the hell out of me. I followed him and scolded him for this. He was like - 'what did I do', but didnt said anything and kept listening. I just told him to indicate by blowing a short horn. If he is reading this - Sorry for the rant)
4) The moment I see an animal on the road.(it was not this way.. I am and was a rare honker, till a walking pigeon on the road came beneath the rear tyre of my car. I got a scolding from my wife for not honking, it would have flown away if I honked. But the habitual no honker in me thought it would fly away the moment it sees the car coming close.. which never happened!)
5) When the driver/rider in front is not noticing a threat ahead
6) When oncoming traffic on a divider-less road is not giving me enough space and trying to throw me off the road.
7) I sometimes also honk as a warning gesture when I come close to the driver who made a wrong move and endangered me or other fellow commuters.
8) Though I usually completely avoid honking at ppl who are unable to start their vehicle at signals even when the light goes green. But I sometimes blow a very small horn. And I hate those ppl who leave the horn pressed when someone is unable to start his/her vehicle - Man, he/she is as eager to fly away as much as you are..