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Venting anger through shrill horns
MAD RUSH: A scene at the Basaveshwara Circle in Bangalore. To escape unhurt, you need more than driving skills.
IS IT possible that as life gets higher, faster, and stronger, people sound their vehicle horns for comfort? It is actually a reflection on our innermost workings, an analysis of a modern phenomenon called "horn rage". That answers the excruciating honking that permeates the senses each time you step on the roads in the City.
Here, as in other parts of the country, there is not even a semblance of road discipline. At night, people drive with the headlights of their vehicles in high beam mode, blinding the drivers of oncoming vehicles. The challenge has to be met head on; the eyes of the hapless motorist be damned.
Take our beloved public transport system. If a bus driver sees a motorcyclist with a girl on the pillion, his blood rages. He has to overtake the tiny vehicle. To make his intentions "loud and clear," he presses the horn: honk, honk, honk... (It is more like a donkey braying.)
Any vehicle that comes in front of a vehicle bigger than it meets this fate. The worse offenders are those in big flashy cars. They are always in a hurry, and may God help you, if you cannot make way for them. Not that the smaller ones are innocent. We have seen two-wheeler riders also behave that way.
Since the way people drive cannot be changed, we suggest cotton wool for the ears. Otherwise, those organs will become non-functional.
In fact, shrill horns — in scientific terms, noise pollution — have contributed to more damaged eardrums than anything else in this part of the world. Studies have proved it.
Why is this happening? That is a question psychologists can spend years researching, and probably go deaf in the bargain (no offence meant).
A recent survey found that in the U.S., youngsters were becoming more rude, and that young women beat men in reckless driving. If someone does such a study here, they will be surprised. It is not just the young ones who are rude here. The not-so-young ones too behave that way. They show it through their horns.
By Divya Sreedharan
Photo: K. Gopinathan
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Life
Bangalore
Chennai
Delhi
Hyderabad
Kochi
Madurai
Thiruvananthapuram
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