HORNY DRIVERS

There are parts in automobiles primarily as safety devices. Modern vehicles have air-bags, padded dash-boards, and specially designed head rests. Simple devices such as seat-belts were auto after-thoughts long after baby boomer childhoods. I have the radio button pocked-forehead scars to prove it. We’ve come a long way, or have we? The most misused safety feature on a car is the horn. Never mind that roadways are strewn with carnage like fans in the aftermath of a World Cup soccer match gone awry. Spend any time driving in rush hour traffic, and you’d think you were at a Green Bay Packers football game during the Lombardi era. These abundant loud blasts emanating from cars carry the sentiment much worse than a Bronx cheer.

Originally designed to warn other motorists “Hey don’t drive in front of me that’s dangerous,” has more aptly become Honk, “you stupid @%$!& moron, who the #@&”!$% taught you how to drive?” Often the horn is accompanied by specific hand gestures, and uncontrolled contorted muscle gesticulations. Now in a split second after someone cuts us off on the highway we shoot our anger down our arm through the horn and right at the offender. It’s almost like turning on an electrical switch to a bolt of lightning. If we were in a James Bond 007 hot-rod we would have hit the rocket firing button to vaporize the road perpetrator into a mere Ford Taurus dust cloud.

Today the horn has become somewhat more of a safety device not to warn other drivers, but to curse them once the offense has been committed. Thus it keeps the offended safe. Driving down a roadway going the speed limit, and having someone pull their car out in front of you ten feet before you arrive is frustrating, and bruising to your brake pedal foot. Then when they have the audacity to drive 7 milers per hour in front of you afterward, it sends most drivers’ hands to the steering wheel to sound the alarm. Eventually you pull behind them at a stop light, and if you hadn’t blasted your horn you might get out and confront the #&%@%*% knucklehead. So the horn performs a service for you without having to actually exercise your body by getting out of your car, pulling them from theirs, and beating the crap out of the inconsiderate @%$#&!%.

Of course doing so is the result of the much dreaded and conveniently invented “road rage.” Let’s face it; some people deserve a good smacking to stimulate their driving skills. Getting a driver’s attention after all is the main design of the much dreaded “speed trap,” utilized by the authorities. Teenagers, soccer moms, little ol’ ladies, old men over 80 years old, and folks who can’t see over the steering wheel should not have licenses. However, any one of these is confrontable once they’ve misguidedly slid in your lane like a black cat crossing your path. As such, something bad is going to happen. It can be a simple horn blast and raised finger, or it could be worse.

Your mother would think you crazy if you got out of your car to vent your displeasure with other drivers. She’d say something like “what if that person was built like Mike Tyson or something? You don’t know what they’ve got in their car!” Aside from potentially having your ear bitten off, telling the other driver what you think of their performance is an American tradition. We have only in the last decade or so decided to deliver the message in person. The horn protects us from such hazardous work. After all those other guys always drive like @^&%$#* imbeciles, and you are the model of highway perfection.

If things don’t escalate after you are perturbed enough to jump from your car and visit their front door at the stop light, you still might find yourself being shipped off to anger management classes if the scene is witnessed by the “police officer donut patrol.” So ya see it might be better just to stay in your car and channel your distress via the horn. However, if you have a compact car with the horn volume similar to that of an annoying yapping Chihuahua, you might want to install a super decibel delivering Mack Truck size diesel horn capable of delivering a rear window shattering blast. That would teach those #$@^%’s to stay out of your way, or at least make you memorable, with a great story to tell in anger management class!