So, this came to me after I was cut off by some shiny happy person in his luxobarge yesterday. Yes, he was on his phone as well.
I feel that in car audio needs to have an override if a horn is sensed in close proximity.
So many new cars block so much exterior noise, a blaring horn isn't noticed anymore.
Let's pass that horn volume to the in-car-entertainment. Heck. make it show on the giant ass infotainment screens as well.
Someone take this to market. Buy me a beer if you make any profit on the idea.
I have this Urge to use a small compressed air Horn. But ............all bad things.
STM317
SuperDork
4/4/18 2:59 p.m.
That sounds like a lot of work, and would probably just be a minor annoyance. What you really want are train horns. That will get some attention.
I'm not convinced the issue is people not hearing the horns. It's just them not caring. Or taking the attitude of "berkeley you, who do you think you are? You don't honk at me!"
I've been flipped off by someone for hitting my horn when they did something dangerous plenty of times... And they certainly heard me, as the Jeep horns are the stock pair plus a set of the old 4 tone Cadillac horns. It's not train horn loud, but they're loud. And pretty distinctive sounding. But I'm sometimes not convinced it's enough. When I hit the horns, their reaction should be "E36 M3, what's wrong!?" which might require horns brutal enough to literally scare the E36 M3 out of someone...
When a locomotive horn equipped vehicle sounds off in your immediate area, you WILL care. 
With all of the connected vehicle stuff going on, that's a really good idea. Bonus points that it can also apply to emergency vehicles.
Can you patent that idea via work? I'm 100% serious.
I still think it should be legal to tag idiot drivers' cars with paintballs, to warn others to be on the lookout around them. You see someone talking on their phone with 7 pink and orange splats on the side of their car and you know to avoid being anywhere near them.
First modification to my Miata was a loud air horn. Not train horn volume but still quite loud.
I've had a phosphate ore freighter give me a blast one foggy morning on Tampa Bay. Train horns are no comparison.
Supertankers have some good horns. Something along those lines would work well. I just bought an air horn set for the Locost at HF. They now have a 3 horn and 2 horn set. I went with the traditional 2 horn style, used by Lotus since time began. I think these are Chinese instead of Italian, though, but close enough.
Hey FD, I got friends in Tampa. You see any Lotus Esprits down there, they'll know me.
In reply to nutherjrfan :
Congratulations, you are now on a list.
I drive a semi,Regular horn is usually ignored,air horn about 50 percent of the time is ignored. People don't care and don't pay attention.
Can't remember the last time I blew my horn or why.
iceracer said:
Can't remember the last time I blew my horn or why.
Come drive in central Florida
My dream horn is one that plays the sound of a semi with 10 locked up brakes, plus an air horn. If the sound of impending death doesn't activate your survival instinct, you don't have one.
In reply to Floating Doc :
Does that include West Palm Beach ?
Mndsm
MegaDork
4/5/18 5:51 p.m.
Floating Doc said:
iceracer said:
Can't remember the last time I blew my horn or why.
Come drive in central Florida
Qft. My middle finger and left arm have gotten more buff since I moved here.
Not that a middle finger is a solution to any problem, but hey.
Also. I vote for the return of the scarlet letter. Via paintball gun. You cut me off or do some other stupid E36 M3, I get to shoot paintballs at your car to let others know you're a dick.
EastCoastMojo said:
I still think it should be legal to tag idiot drivers' cars with paintballs, to warn others to be on the lookout around them. You see someone talking on their phone with 7 pink and orange splats on the side of their car and you know to avoid being anywhere near them.
I suggested we all have a small hand gun and we get to legally pop out a rear tire causing a minor spin out. If we all have guns everyone will totally pay attention.
iceracer said:
Can't remember the last time I blew my horn or why.
Let's see.
Yesterday on my way home, cruising through the green light when the A-hole in the white F-250 approaching from my right wanting to turn right on red pulled halfway into my lane as I'm heading through the intersection at 40mph.
Oh yeah, and then again today. Same time, same intersection and same A-hole equipped F-250.
Mndsm said:
Floating Doc said:
iceracer said:
Can't remember the last time I blew my horn or why.
Come drive in central Florida
Qft. My middle finger and left arm have gotten more buff since I moved here.
Not that a middle finger is a solution to any problem, but hey.
Also. I vote for the return of the scarlet letter. Via paintball gun. You cut me off or do some other stupid E36 M3, I get to shoot paintballs at your car to let others know you're a dick.
I'm way to sarcastic to use middle fingers. I use thumbs-ups instead. I'm sure some people don't even know what they did, but at least it keeps the road rage to a minimum.
My most frequent use of horn (which has exceeded 10 continuous seconds a few times) is at the intersection pictured below. I drive this every day coming home from work and run into the situation below at least once every other week (although I've had it happen 3 or 4 times in a week before).
When taking the right turn along the green arrow, if a car is following the blue line through the intersection, there's a 50/50 shot of the car in front of me (along the green arrow) coming to a dead stop at the red line. It's 2 berkeleying lanes (although they do merge after the bottom of the picture, but it's not a tight merge or anything). Yet people feel the need to treat it like a yield (no yield sign, of course).
I wish I could explain to them that stopping there is like stopping on an on-ramp because there were cars on the highway... At this point, if the car in front of me stops, I lay on the horn and don't let off until they move. Record is somewhere around 15 - 20 seconds. And some people get seriously pissed when you get on the horn for them stopping, because they're too damn stupid to realize that they've stopped in the middle of the road for no reason!
In reply to rslifkin :
That's fine and dandy if the car in the blue lane stays there. We have those around here. I've seen people driving the blue lane and get to the green lane as soon as the green lane starts. Almost been nailed a couple times doing exactly as you state. I've learned to slow down enough to make sure the blue lane car doesn't decide to take the green lane. To compound matters, the place just like that I drive daily has 2 left turn lanes across from the green and when they have a green light the 2 lanes take up both the green and blue lanes. Stopping in mandatory then.
Appleseed said:
In reply to nutherjrfan :
Congratulations, you are now on a list.
The list is so big and the spooks so incompetent I'm not worried. 
In reply to wlkelley3 :
It's well marked that the green lane is the one that ends at the merge, so I've never seen anyone move over from the blue lane (as that one just continues straight down the road with no change of alignment). It's laid out almost exactly like a highway on ramp. And there's only 1 lane between that triangle median and the other direction traffic for cars to flow into (the blue lane), so no change of having a side-by-side before the green lane comes in.
The corner definitely requires a drop in speed (especially with the road being a bit chewed up this winter), but sitting at a dead stop (with no yield requirement, etc.) for 15+ seconds until all of the blue cars are gone is just insane.
iceracer said:
In reply to Floating Doc :
Does that include West Palm Beach ?
Absolutely, seems to get worse the farther south you go.
