The Old Coot wants a friendly car horn 

I was driving down the street minding my own business the other day, well, that’s not exactly true; I never mind my own business, but anyhow, I was tooling along when I saw a neighbor walking his dog. He waved and I pressed the horn, but it didn’t make a sound. I didn’t push it hard enough. I tried again, but nothing happened. It finally worked, but by then I was past him and coming up to a young woman pushing a baby carriage. She gave me a dirty look and sped up the street to get away from the “jerk” blowing his horn at her. 

This happens to me all the time. The horns on today’s cars are rude. I guess it’s because the button sits on top of the airbag. When you want to push the horn, you have to shove the whole airbag mechanism hard enough to make contact with the horn circuit. You can’t give it a gentle tap. You can’t toot a friendly hello; you have to slam your hand down and blast the horn. 

It’s why we have road rage in this country. It’s not due to stress in people’s lives; it’s due to the crappy horns that the automakers install on our vehicles. Blaring horns make people mad. 

They don’t have road rage in the Caribbean. I’ve been to several of the islands over the years and can attest to the lack of road rage. They have good horns on their cars, the kind that can give a friendly toot and they use them all the time. All it takes is one cab ride to get the picture. The driver toots as he pulls out – toots as he approaches another car – toots when he turns – waves and toots when he asks to be let in at a busy corner. The horn is a friendly device in the Caribbean Islands.  

I’m considering installing an auxiliary horn in my car, put a button on the dash so I won’t have any problem finding it. Then I’ll be a friendly “Caribbean” driver, not a rude American. I’ll be out there tooting to my friends, giving old fogies a gentle reminder that it’s okay to go right on red. 

I did this to my father’s car when I was a teenager, except I put the button under the dash so he wouldn’t notice, and mounted a blaring truck horn in the engine compartment in an inconspicuous place. I used it to scare people, in the true spirit of a teenage idiot. The horn became history the day I blew it while I sat behind the wheel and my father had his head under the hood checking the oil. I just couldn’t help myself. I wanted to see if the old guy could dance. He could. He waltzed me out of the car and stood watch while I dismantled the modification to his prized Edsel.

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