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Ongoing studies on how people react in traffic uncover what we already pretty much knew: The honking of the carhorn brings no safety nor communicative value whatsoever.
Jeff Muttart, a traffic-accident reconstructionist, has pored over hundreds of surveillance videos of real-life car crashes and near-crashes. In 2005, he concluded that emergency horn use is not associated with decreased accident involvement. He found that drivers never steered and honked at the same time, and usually they didn’t honk at all. About half of emergency honks were meant to chastise and came only after the danger was over. The other half were just preludes to a crash. “It really didn’t serve any purpose at all. It was just, Hey, by the way, I’m going to hit you.”
I’ve already weighed in against the use of this in-dash noisemaker, specifically in situations where a cellphone would make so much more sense.
Incredible because the car horn has prevented me being involved in a wreck on several occasions. Especially when a car in another lane decided to change lanes and either did not look, or did not see me. A cell phone certainly would have been absolutely useless!!
Comment by D — 12/04/2008 @ 1:38 PM
Agreed, a cellphone wouldn’t have done any good in your situation (unless you threw it at the other car). Personally, I’ve been in the same situation, and all the mad honking I did didn’t prevent the other car from drifting into my lane and crumpling me anyway.
In any case, the cellphone option I’m referring to above is an alternative to the obnoxious carhorn beeping some choose when letting someone know that their ride has arrived. Usually in the wee morning hours, to boot.
Comment by CT — 12/04/2008 @ 3:59 PM