Occasionally when you’re driving, you’ll make a mistake and perhaps need to adjust and it can create some awkward situations. Like today, my dad ended up in the wrong lane to go straight instead of turn at a light. He had to cut in line to make sure we could go the right way. It’d be nice if we could communicate “sorry, I screwed up. Excuse me. I just need to slip in there.”
Right now all we have for inter car communication is the horn, which has kind of an aggressive implication to it. This is for trying to de-escalate potential road rage.
As a league of legends player, there is no signal that can universally be accepted to mean a specific thing. It would be abused by bad actors.
That being said, making a wrong turn is more acceptable than being an asshole or endangering other’s lives or property. Pay more attention or accept the consequences.
Or your dad could accept that he’s going to travel a tiny bit further than he originally intended, and reroute with a u-turn, or a block circle, or a parking lot turn, or something similar. No invasive lane change. No need to apologise for an invasive lane change. No need for a special horn to communicate an apology for an invasive lane change. You don’t need to apologise for something you don’t make into someone else’s problem.
I think it’s healthier for everybody to accept that mistakes happen, and tolerate the correction, knowing that one day you might make the mistake too.
An invasive lane change costs a few seconds to the other person, while rerouting will usually cost at least a minute. In other words, if we imagine everybody in the world makes that mistake once a month, then forcing everybody to reroute rather than do an invasive lane change, costs the world thousands of more hours.
Yeah if only there was some way to signal “I want to go right” or “I want to go left” smh my head
I always thought you could do like a few different things on a screen running under the windshield or something. Even those analog card flip ones have been around since at least the 80s. Who knows though, it could increase road rage or something. What did they call it on pimp my ride, hatervision?
Lmfao imagine it gets stuck on like “go fuck yourself”
“A bad driver never misses their exit”
Sometimes you make a mistake and miss your exit or end up in the wrong lane. That’s on you. Re-route, follow the lane you’re in, take the next safe turn/exit/lane change to get back on track; you don’t just cut in line, forcing others to correct for your own mistakes. That’s a great way to create unsafe conditions, end up in accidents, and hurt people. It’s not just about peoples ego/anger, it’s genuinely dangerous.
Your father doesn’t need a ‘sorry’ button, he needs to correct his poor driving behaviour and not endanger himself, you, or others on the road.
Driving involves a lot of soft decisions. Any action can be risky, even a regular lane change. But we still do lane changes all the time. Ultimately it’s up to us to judge.
Point is, I think there are cases where making a last minute lane change can be totally safe, eg if the cars in the other lane are already stopped.
1000% don’t make others pay for your mistake.
Yeah. My dad is an atrocious driver who has gotten lucky so far.
I’m the great driver I am because my dad is just like that.
He’s a shining example of what not to do.
Came here to drop that same quote. 🫡
If you actually want to be polite for real, the solution is to go around the block and do it the right way. A “sorry” horn won’t fix the notion of feeling entitled to make sudden unexpected (i.e. dangerous) moves in traffic to avoid inconveniencing yourself after you fuck up. At best it’ll just make you (unjustifiably) feel like a better person.
He decided he had to make it someone else’s problem by needing to be let in, instead of simply affecting only himself (and you unfortunately). Bad decisions on my part should never be imposed on anyone else. And if more others behaved that way, we’d all have less problems.
We don’t need a sorry horn. We in the states need a significantly higher barrier to people getting and keeping a license. Cars are a privilege not a right and people should be reminded of that.
How-to by Mark Rober:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lv8wqnk_TsAIt’s not very detailed in the video, but gives a good idea on how to get it done.
As humans usually want to express quite complex things but have already developed a tried and tested method to communicate a lot of these complex things, I’d say we just enable voice for inter car communication by equipping every car with a huge megaphone on its roof that can be accessed from any seat inside.
Palace Hotel Ballroom… One Night Only
It’s not the horn itself but how it’s used.
Long blast = angry Two quick bips = not angry One bip = I’m just letting you know I’m here
Two long blasts - The El Dude Brothers
Usage is also country specific. Different countries use different horn communication
What if its La Cucaracha?
Everybody has to get out of their cars and dance!
I don’t know if it’s my car or me, but I’ve always find very difficult to modulate my horn, like if I try to have it do bips, they don’t come out, I need to really punch it which means they won’t be quickly one after the other. I need more horn practice.
There are some horns that are just impossible to modulate the length of. Dodge for sure has this problem as the direct to horn wiring is gone. They now run the horn through the body control module. The physical tap of the horn is now lost essentially as it instructs the horn to sound off for its predetermined amount of time. No polite nips of horn sound to wake a driver at a light, but a full on FU to get going!
There are more tech devices to buy that help with this stupidity that tech has created. Progress?
I like it when the long blast is 5 seconds plus, I can’t not find that funny
Have you ever visited any mainland European country??
Big Beats are the best, get high all the time
You deserve to be able to retire after someone from Shark Tank takes your idea and makes it mandatory on all vehicles.
Whatever sound it makes would have to be very distinctive and not leave any room for interpretation.
womp womp
I would use this when I see someone do something stupid, like clipping the curb, that doesn’t deserve an angry honk.
Fart sound is good enough.
I live in an old house right up against one of the main arterial streets for the city centre and pls no, no more horns
Three or four blinks of the four-way / hazard lights is commonly used as “Thank you”. That would be appropriate for someone who let you in.
This isn’t a thing where I live but I wish it was!
I’ve only seen that in Eastern Europe, but as both a “thank you” and also “oh, shit, sorry.”
I have never heard of this and would genuinely think the person was having an issue. Where I’m from people just put a hand up as a wave. You lower most of your fingers if they tried to cut you off.
The way people communicate in cars using hazard lights is country specific usually in my experience.
You lower most of your fingers if they tried to cut you off.
I love how you phrased this.
Hmm, I thought this was more common, is it not used in the states or something? Not seeing it anywhere near as much as I was expecting to in this thread. Far as I know this is the standard everyone uses, but I guess not “everyone” everyone.
It’s not a thing in the States at all. There’s zero use of the hazard lights other than to indicate your car is having problems and you need to pull over, or you’re parking (poorly, usually) and will be right back.
Lived in the states my entire life. Never heard of that.
Yeah, that’s what I figured. When stuff isn’t as common as you expect on the internet, it probably doesn’t happen in the states.
I’ve seen turning your headlights/running lights off and on in the US for a “sorry/thanks”. I haven’t seen hazards used for that ever
*sad trombone noises"
