HOOTING RIGHT AND WRONG

Taranaki Daily News, 2 December 1933, Page 3 (Supplement)

HOOTING RIGHT AND WRONG

AN ENGLISH VIEWPOINT.

(By

John Prioleau

in the "Spectator.”)

“You will therefore perceive, sir, the excellent disposition of our prefect of police. But how impossible it is to eradicate a habit into which motorists, both French and English, and, indeed well-nigh universally, have fallen, is illustrated by the fact that to-day the abuse of the motor-horn is greater than ever, and every Parisian driver seems to regard it as a ritual of his sport or calling to emit a blast from his horn at least every 100 yards irrespective of his speed.” I quote this, the concluding sentence of a letter written to “The Times” last week by M. O. C. Cabot, the honorary secretary of the Societe pour 1 la Suppression du Bruit, Paris, as being very pertinent to the problem we are trying to solve on this side of the Channel, the dangers of the road. It has long been my belief that these dangers might be sensibly lessened if some form of control over the use and type of horn were established. Except in one sense, our trouble and the griefs of the Paris public over the intolerable din that rages through the day are separate. We have nothing like the same scourge in London or in any considerable city. We can say that in 90 cases out of 100 where our ears are tortured and our nerves chocked it is by the newest type of screaming buzzer, and the criminal is the youth in what is unhappily called a sports car. The rest of the motornoises are produced by the disagreeable but far less irritating squawk of the taxi-cab, omnibus, and van, and the generally more considerately used hooter of the private car. There is far too much horn noise, of course, but it is, except for the screaming buzzer, bearable—or we are getting used to it. FRENCH RESTRICTIONS.

Earlier in his letter M. Cabot quotes from an ordinance issued on June 24 by M. Chiappe, the Police Prefect, in which he prescribed a “trumpet” (by which is exclusively meant a bulbhorn) of low pitch and single tone, and forbade whistles, sirens, and all other apparatus emitting pultiple sounds, or raucous or strident notes of a character to startle pedestrians, frighten animals or incommode residents. A model motor, trumpet, a sealed pattern, has been deposited at the Municipal Laboratory of Arts and Crafts. In my opinion this is exactly the ordinance we want in this country, not only for London but everywhere. I unhesitatingly ascribe some part of the increasing dangers to all users of the road to the use and violent abuse of the electric hooter. I do not accuse the decent driver of no matter what kind of vehicle in England, from a lorry to a motor-bicycle, of the excesses of the Parisian, but you need only spend a day on the roads; from those of the “A” class to the “C ’ and lesser, to realise that hooter-sound-ing is as often as not a species of nervous habit. It has been so thoroughly drilled into our consciousness that in the event of an accident, no matter how slight, one of the first questions asked by country police or magistrate will be, “Did you sound your horn?” that many have come to regard the hornbutton as a sort of talisman, a “touchwood” gesture, to the infinite multiplication of everybody’s discomfort. A NATURAL OUTCOME. Moreover, it is the nature of the contraption itself that leads to its wide abuse. When we used squeeze-bulb horns, particularly if they were of the deep-toned sort, the motions required for making the necessary noise were comparatively prolonged. You could not make the old “cobra” speak with a finger-touch. A certain amount . of steady, firm pressure, correctly applied, was needed if a warning note of any use was to emerge. That was why we did not suffer from the restless, straying fingers of to-day, for ever hovering over or touching the handy button that releases that shattering uproar. Further, and still more important, we allowed more time for the blowing of thht horn at cross-roads and other danger-spots. The chief drawback to the electric horn is its instant response to the button. Inexperienced drivers do not realise that it takes an appreciable time for noise of any sort to reach the understanding of the human brain, and that to tap the button when you are 20 yards or so from the cross-roads or bend and travelling at 30 miles an hour is of very little use as a serviceable warning. By the time the ears for which it is intended have passed it on to their owner’s attention it is more than likely that you will have passed the traveller. There are exceptions to this, of course, but not many. The absent-minded driver or walker who suddenly deviates from his apparently set course does require a quick reminder of his danger, and for that instant action of . the warning is inevitable. But for this I. would sooner see every car equipped with the little squeaker we used to know as the “Paris taxi” than with any form of electric noise. TOO MUCH FOR SAFETY. Practically every form of hooter makes too much noise for safety. In the first place its power—and this applies particularly to the sports abomination—gives the ignorant or callous driver far too much self-confidence. He knows that the hideous blast that he looses upon the car he wishes to overtake is bound to be heard. If by some strange accident the uproar is not instantly acknowledged by the victim, another and longer blast is produced into which he contrives in the most mysterious way to impart ferocious abuse. After a score of such experiences, the result on anybody but a model of patience is inevitable. He refuses to be bullied —for that is the exact description of the tone of most hooters—and he accelerates beyond the speed he has set himself, he is made uncomfortable, irritable, and, finally and worst of all, angry. The chances are then that he will do his best to overtake the offending car and in a moment you '•have the main ingredients of the commoner sort of road-smash ready to hand hurry, driving on the brakes, cutting in, and driving faster than you need. The long-distance carry of the. sports type, which is new this year, is perhaps a well-intentioned quality for the open road, but anyone who has heard that horrible noise, sudden as lightning, been startled and irritated, only to find that the car that has made it is perhaps 500 yards behind instead of, as he would have sworn 50, will agree that it is as much of a pest and therefore a danger as the other. It is agreed by those who are qualified to judge that speed in itself is not a prime cause of the perils of the road, but lack of common sense and ordinary civility, and that is why I would like to see the abolition by law of all forms of mechanical or electrical noise-makers. I would not follow M. Chiappe’s plan in every detail, as I believe variety in warning notes would be indispensable. I would, like M. Chiappe, have a sealed pattern bulb, a large one that it would a couple of seconds or so to squeeze

effectively, in an attempt to ensure a little more delay on the part of the driver in a dangerous hurry at a dangerous place, but I would let every man .choose his reed. With this sort of horn, the least offensive to listen to and the longest to work, to-day’s detestable trick of using an electric hooter in the manner of a fire-engine’s bell—“lf you want to live, get out of my way”—would be scotched and, I am certain, accidents would decrease.' I dislike and wholly distrust all forms of official compulsion, but there is one example of it I should like to see tried. I would forbid all sounding of horns at cross-roads and dangerous bends (except in fog) and, if you like, in London and other congested towns. It has been tried in various places abroad with a fair measure of success. If you are not allowed to announce your approach to visible or invisible occupants of the road you will, unless you are a homicidal lunatic, drive with the greatest care. In the open the sealed pattern horn (I shy at the word official or Government, but that is what it would be) with the strictly rationed note-penetration would noticeably help to diminish the ill-feel-ing there is now on the King’s highway. Drivers would learn to use their mirrors properly, and if you could not make yourself heard until you were close behind another car you wished to overtake you would not be tempted to commit one of the worst of the 1933 crimes and, with your thumb hard down on the button and in a pitiful attempt to show off, tear past at a dangerous speed. You would be obliged to behave yourself, which is another way of describing safe driving.

The broadcasting stations of Czechoslovakia take first place in using the greatest number of languages. That of Prague generally makes its daily announcements in Czech and German, but every week it also uses French, Russian and English, and occasionally Polish and Serb. At Bratislava they speak in Slovene, Russia, Hungarian, Polish and Rumanian.