h a l f b a k e r yGo ahead. Stick a fork in it.
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Like several other people posting in
this category, I live in a noisy urban
area. New York City. It can't get
much
more noisy than this in the US. I feel
that not a minute can go by during
the day that somebody twenty cars
back isn't laying on his horn
because
the car at the intersection
is waiting
for people to clear the crosswalk or
some similar scenario. So, in the
interest of helping to preserve the
hearing of all pedestrians a little, I
propose that all cars be
manufactured with a horn inside
that
is as loud as the horn outside
(subjectively speaking of course, no
need to hurt the driver either).
Obviously a difficult challenge
would
be to make it tamper-proof.
Imagine
the self control most people would
be able to muster if they were
forced
to subject themselves to the same
noise they make everybody outside
their car put up with. The horn is
intended for alerting people
(pedestrians and other drivers) of an
impending emergency situation. Of
course there are times you need to
wake the person up in front of you
at
the light or other small things that
twang your strings, Those are the
times you would need to decide just
how little would be enough to get
them going without making yourself
crazy. I drive, so it's not as if I don't
understand how frustrating it can
be. Some way to force a little
restraint seems to be needed.
More Horn Blowing
http://www.aetv.com...horatio_hornblower/ [DrCurry, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 21 2004]
[link]
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Convertibles would end up being doubly-loud to pedestrians though. Why not use some other disincentive such as electric shocks, painfully blinding flashes of brilliant white light, abrupt tensioning of the seat-belt, auto-selection of barry-manilow track by the radio etc. |
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can I give you a lift (ride) benfrost? |
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I like this proposal*, but I think it would be better if the inside-loudness ramped up over the first quarter-second of honking. That way you could comfortably do a friendly beep-beep, but not an extended HOOOOOOONK. |
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*despite its title, which made me anticipate a rant |
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How about an easily blown fuse between the horn and the steering wheel ... thus, the more the horn is abused, the more often this fuse must be replaced ... |
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The convertible issue is easy - the
inside horn is disabled when the
top is down since dobtabulous is
correct in that it would be a
doubling of the noise. I fear that
"auto-selection of barry-manilow
track by the radio" would be more
than a disincentive and cause the
uncontrollable urge to stomp on
the accelerator and head for the
nearest hard object. I like AO's
idea of ramping up as the abuse
increases leaving us the option of
a "polite" nudge. I see people on
the side of the road with bags of
fuses or simply a wad of solder
stuffed into the fuse holder. |
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I think you would benefit by breaking that paragraph up into readable chunks, thereby making it much more obvious what the idea is. |
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P.S. I don't think it's going to work - truck klaxons are really loud inside the cab, but truck drivers still seem to enjoy blasting them. |
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Youd have to make the inside horn much more annoying than the outer horn. Infusing it with the sound of a dentists drill scratching a blackboard would be a good start. |
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I've always thought that cars should be able to do more than one noise. Another button accessable on the dashboard to broadcase a more subtle "chirp" to get the attention of the person asleep in the front of the line would be nice. The noise should be less than a second in duration, and set such that it could not be used more often than every 5 seconds or so. |
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I think it would be a good way to help people (like me) break the habit. But honestly, I wouldn't buy a car with such a noisy device inside. I don't think anybody would, really. Blowing the horn goes beyond my will... in my city is a necessity to pretty much get anywhere, serious. |
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Horns are annoying. They are poky. |
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