hese days car horns get used much too often, even here in Seattle.
People certainly reach for their horns more often than when I was growing up in the car-dominated culture of southern California.
I don’t remember when was the last time I’ve seen people use their horns justifiably, and I don’t even know where the horn is in my own car.
(However, I'm willing to bet that it's somewhere in the middle of the steering wheel of my Volvo.)
Hearing them makes me sick, since their hideous noises seem bent on collapsing the walls bearing what’s left of civility in our society.
Didn't these honkers' mothers teach these people manners? Don't they realise that horns don't work?
Honking is not productive behaviour.
For the most part, traffic is not going to move if they honk, because they are the ones who are ultimately causing the congestion by simply driving.
Anyway, what happened to quietly and patiently enduring awkward situations with dignity, grace, and certainly without expressed complaint?
s expected, the mainstream media doesn’t help matters much by affirming people’s basest instincts.
Sometimes it seems that we’re inundated by complaints against slow drivers at websites, on the radio, or on television.
The extent of hostility against them almost suggests underlying problems or pathologies of something profoundly disturbing in contect of civilised society.
Are slow drivers really a problem that reasonable people should expend their energies on?
(Obviously these much pampered people haven’t experienced true ordeal endured by most of the world's inhabitants, like famine, epidemics, death squads, or bombing by American B-52s.)
Where’s the clamour against rude and reckless drivers?
The situation has gone out of control.
Where are the people in mainstream media fighting for the rights of pedestrians?
Who's giving voice to their plight and the relentless onslaught against them by a car-mad society?
As if they don't have enough obstacles and dangers already, pedestrians walking along almost any busy thoroughfare in America are confronted by a barrage of horns.
In several instances, I’ve heard horns used by motorists against vehicles ahead of them who are patiently waiting for me and other pedestrians to complete the crossing.
I’ve even been honked by drivers who feel that I’m walking too slow for their taste.
How dare they honk at me?
For fuck’s sake, as motorists, they are destroying the planet with their filthy emissions by merely driving.
Everybody with a half-decent mind knows that the car has done more to destroy the American city and contribute to
the current reality of the environmentally and socially disastrous suburban sprawl than any other fucking factor.
Driving, like smoking, is an addiction that's harmful to the environment as well as to our health and to the quality of life.
It should be reduced and discouraged as soon as possible, and at all costs.
Cars and driving shouldn't be necessities, and our public policies should be aimed toward building a society that doesn't depend on cars or petrol.
Stop the insanity!
e should never, ever forget that the car has done more to lay waste to the North American landscape than any other factor, and
let's not even get into how it affects our truly fucked-up foreign policy.
As if all that were not enough, now some drivers also want to pollute the environment with noise and hostile vibes.
American drivers' sense of unbridled entitlement is unequivocally unjustified. They should feel repentant.
Instead of making driving easier or building more roads (which, incidentally, would not relieve congestion since drivers would always fill that capacity),
we should be making driving more difficult by making it more expensive, starting with higher car registration fees, tolls on roads and bridges, petrol that reflect their real costs (especially its costs to the environment), and a congestion tax for downtown areas like what they have in London and Singapore.
(Single occupancy cars coming in from the suburbs into inner cities during weekday business hours are often the major culprits for congestion.
Needless to say, they hinder the flow of buses.
As a result, these drivers should be taxed accordingly.)
Better yet, they can choose to do the right thing.
Do not drive, use public transportation, and/ or live in the inner cities, where driving is optional and discouraged.
Drivers in America should just shut the fuck up when they complain about congestion.
Ultimately, they are the ones who are causing the congestion. Nobody is forcing them to drive.
Nobody is forcing them to live out in the suburbs with their hideously big houses and wasteful lifestyles.
They can choose to take public transportation, and thereby making it even more viable and better funded. They can choose to carpool.
They can choose to live in a town, and walk or bike to the places they need to go. There's a choice.
That's what I and so many people have chosen to do.
It's the logical way, and it's the environmentally sustainable way.
In the end, driving is a privilege that shouldn’t be abused.
hat’s the point of honking?" I'm compelled to ask again.
On occasions when I’m the motorist, I’ve also been honked much too frequently, particularly even here amid Capitol Hill intersections whenever I’m slowing down (not stopping, mind you) to make sure that I don’t miss a stop sign.
In the end, honking is not going make traffic go any faster or safer, and it’s certainly not going to make me go any faster.
It’s just noise pollution that’s going to make me angry, upset, and go slower than I would have otherwise.
It's going to remind me of the meanness of people. It’s going to overwhelm me with sadness for our society and bewilderment at the stupidity of the idiot honking behind me.
It's going to remind me of the evils and costs of driving. It's going to ask me what costs motoring has incurred on our built environment and quality of life.
Driving faster would be the last thing I would do when I’m honked at, since ultimately, I wouldn’t want to further our society’s decline by rewarding idiocy, or rudeness, or unnecessary driving.
I urge everyone, whether driver or pedestrian, to remember to move slower whenever you’ve been honked. Better yet, if you're walking, stop and stare at the offending driver, and give him something to really fume about.
It's time to take back our streets.
hese days car horns get used much too often, even here in Seattle.
People certainly reach for their horns more often than when I was growing up in the car-dominated culture of southern California.
I don’t remember when was the last time I’ve seen people use their horns justifiably, and I don’t even know where the horn is in my own car.
(However, I'm willing to bet that it's somewhere in the middle of the steering wheel of my Volvo.)
Hearing them makes me sick, since their hideous noises seem bent on collapsing the walls bearing what’s left of civility in our society.
Didn't these honkers' mothers teach these people manners? Don't they realise that horns don't work?
Honking is not productive behaviour.
For the most part, traffic is not going to move if they honk, because they are the ones who are ultimately causing the congestion by simply driving.
Anyway, what happened to quietly and patiently enduring awkward situations with dignity, grace, and certainly without expressed complaint?
s expected, the mainstream media doesn’t help matters much by affirming people’s basest instincts.
Sometimes it seems that we’re inundated by complaints against slow drivers at websites, on the radio, or on television.
The extent of hostility against them almost suggests underlying problems or pathologies of something profoundly disturbing in contect of civilised society.
Are slow drivers really a problem that reasonable people should expend their energies on?
(Obviously these much pampered people haven’t experienced true ordeal endured by most of the world's inhabitants, like famine, epidemics, death squads, or bombing by American B-52s.)
Where’s the clamour against rude and reckless drivers?
The situation has gone out of control.
Where are the people in mainstream media fighting for the rights of pedestrians?
Who's giving voice to their plight and the relentless onslaught against them by a car-mad society?
As if they don't have enough obstacles and dangers already, pedestrians walking along almost any busy thoroughfare in America are confronted by a barrage of horns.
In several instances, I’ve heard horns used by motorists against vehicles ahead of them who are patiently waiting for me and other pedestrians to complete the crossing.
I’ve even been honked by drivers who feel that I’m walking too slow for their taste.
How dare they honk at me?
For fuck’s sake, as motorists, they are destroying the planet with their filthy emissions by merely driving.
Everybody with a half-decent mind knows that the car has done more to destroy the American city and contribute to
the current reality of the environmentally and socially disastrous suburban sprawl than any other fucking factor.
Driving, like smoking, is an addiction that's harmful to the environment as well as to our health and to the quality of life.
It should be reduced and discouraged as soon as possible, and at all costs.
Cars and driving shouldn't be necessities, and our public policies should be aimed toward building a society that doesn't depend on cars or petrol.
Stop the insanity!
e should never, ever forget that the car has done more to lay waste to the North American landscape than any other factor, and
let's not even get into how it affects our truly fucked-up foreign policy.
As if all that were not enough, now some drivers also want to pollute the environment with noise and hostile vibes.
American drivers' sense of unbridled entitlement is unequivocally unjustified. They should feel repentant.
Instead of making driving easier or building more roads (which, incidentally, would not relieve congestion since drivers would always fill that capacity),
we should be making driving more difficult by making it more expensive, starting with