Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Six months on the road

Koushik Udayashankar's spent six months without using a horn -- yes, it is possible:

I finished work one evening and hopped onto Vroomie (my best girl) [yes, he really has named his Thunderbird Vroomie, we still love you, anyway, UK] to get home. An idiot got in my way -- one of those always always seem to. Of course, I honked at him, loudly and vigorously. Except that all I got was a wheeze. I wondered about it but kept driving. I soon got home and all was forgotten.

The next morning, another idiot almost run over - again, there was just silence when I tried to honk at the fool who’d tried to send me to jail. I was officially worried now, and got off to find Vroomie looking a tad pale. My horn was hanging by a wire and it looked like someone had nicked it while it was parked. Grrrr.

There began my quest to see if I could survive the madness of our roads without a horn. And it has been six months. Six glorious months of no blaring horns from Vroomie, not even a squeak. I still press the button when I need to honk and the silence is so much louder. My dependence on the pass light has increased and I am quite amazed that people seem to respect it more. It lets me pass while people wait, it lets me overtake from the right, it lets me overtake from the left, it even screams idiot when someone gets in my way. Silence, I guess, is sometimes so much louder than words.

Even better, I am a more careful rider now. Not having a horn comes with added responsibility; with the knowledge that the guy in front cannot see or hear you, that the old lady crossing the road probably can't hear you anyway.

I am certainly not proposing that we go around breaking horns off people's bikes. The challenge of not using a horn is certainly fun and it would do world-stress a huge favour but responsibility comes at a cost - the cost of peaceful motoring - something that isn't for the weak hearted.

[SmalNote: Give not honking a shot -- just for today]