
Honk more, wait more: Mumbai traffic police introduce the ‘punishing signal’ - mhb
https://weather.com/en-IN/india/news/news/2020-02-01-honk-more-wait-more-mumbai-traffic-police-punishing-signal
======
hnarn
Honking is very uncommon in Sweden, and I remember my driving instructor
pointing out to me that the only time you ever use it is to call attention to
avoid an immediate accident. In practice, I see many drivers not even doing
this. I routinely see people jaywalking in urban environments and cars just
stopping until they've crossed.

One thing that might be semi related to this is the entitlement of drivers. My
view of Sweden is that most people accept that cities "belong" to pedestrians
first hand, and cars need to be careful. In other parts of the world, the "get
out of my way" entitlement of drivers is very apparent and I don't think it's
very helpful.

~~~
carlmr
In Germany if you don't start accelerating when the light turns yellow, the
guy behind you will start honking.

~~~
MrGilbert
> In Germany if you don't start accelerating when the light turns yellow, the
> guy behind you will start honking.

Don't generalize. Usually, you have some seconds until the driver behind you
will honk. I normally count "21 - 22 - 23", then I honk if there hasn't been
any reaction (restarting the engine, pressing the brake pedal, etc.). But your
mileage my vary.

~~~
carlmr
Maybe it's area dependant, in my city they definitely honk in under a second.

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brazzy
I once worked on a QA system for a car manufacturer. The idea was to data mine
for commonly ocurring problems and then support a workflow to do root cause
analysis and organize a fix in order to reduce warranty expenses.

One problem that had been identified was "Cars of this model produced in this
factory have the horn fail very often within the warranty period".

The root cause analysis was: "This factory produces for the Indian market. The
horn is designed for 50k activation cycles. Due to the higher use intensity in
India, this is not sufficient."

They were still debating whether to install a more sturdy horn only in cars
delivered to India or everywhere.

~~~
chetangoti
Was it German manufacturer? We experieneced lots of Skoda (basically anything
of VW group) horn failures in India!

~~~
Ayesh
I'm pretty sure pretty much every low/mid range car in India has a custom fit
horn that is loud more or less to a train.

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asenna
The honking situation in India genuinely fascinates me (apart from driving me
insane). If someone's not experienced it, you won't know what we're talking
about. Comparing it to France / other places won't do justice. I compare it to
Bats using sonar echo to move while being almost blind (I know this analogy
doesn't hold exactly but you know what I mean?).

I have seen bikes in smaller town hoking continuously down a straight empty
road - probably because they want to announce they're coming and letting kids
/ other people know they're coming and you better look out (not to annoy you
but out of genuine concern for YOU).

Bigger cities have the same problem amplified. Everyone letting everyone else
know that they're around, watch out.

I've lived in other crowded cities in developing nations like Nairobi - it has
the same traffic problems but not a single car honking! The entire town stuck
in traffic and complete silence! So it is possible, I just don't understand
what gave Indian drivers the idea that this helps in their driving.

~~~
clashmeifyoucan
The safety part does have something to do with it. But more often the horn is
used as a stress ball, as if pressing it will somehow get traffic moving
faster. There's also this category of bikers who want to speed on empty roads
looking all "heroic" who honk away without a care in the world.

~~~
nadahalli
I am from Bangalore, and in 2012, I tried an experiment in an auto-rickshaw
(tuk-tuk). I offered to pay the driver double the meter price if he didn't
honk even once during an upcoming 1 hour-ish ride.

The driver thought I was nuts to offer him this obviously easy money, and
accepted it. I told him up front that the first honk, and the extra money was
off the table. He said - ok - and we started the ride. The first few
kilometers were pleasant, and the driver was cool with it - but as we entered
the business district with more traffic, he became more and more frustrated
and started to hum and sing to take it out a bit. Then, he kind of started
"barking" (for the lack of a better word) at other drivers who irritated him.
He then resorted to outright shouting at the drivers. Eventually, something
snapped and he honked once. I told him the deal was off, and the rest of my
trip was a veritable honk-hell.

I have always believed the stress ball theory after this one-off experiment.

~~~
zupzupzup
Recently shifted to Bangalore, will try this out !! Haha

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blunte
Incessant honking is just another form of mass of mass ignorance.

Whether it is spitting, throwing cigarette butts, stealing any small thing
that isn't locked down, or honking, the end result is that everyone's quality
of life decreased - even the people doing the bad thing.

The ignorance is that anyone who took just a moment to think through the
situation would realize that such actions do not help. But for some reason,
large numbers of humans default to low level mental functioning whereby they
spend most of their lives operating without rational thought.

~~~
ipnon
It's like the tragedy of the commons:

I honk -> I arrive faster

We all honk -> We all arrive slower

How to change these problem behaviors en masse is still an open problem, as
far as I know. The approach taken in the link by the Mumbai police, of
introducing a negative feedback mechanism for the behavior, is a
psychologically sound approach.

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keiferski
NYC tried for over 30 years, and failed, to use signs to get people to stop
honking. Unnecessary honking will still get you a $350 fine, though.

[https://www.npr.org/2013/02/12/171837301/new-york-city-
ends-...](https://www.npr.org/2013/02/12/171837301/new-york-city-ends-30-year-
experiment-with-dont-honk-signs)

[https://www.silive.com/news/2017/08/350_fine_for_improper_ho...](https://www.silive.com/news/2017/08/350_fine_for_improper_honking.html)

~~~
udfalkso
Signs aren’t sufficient. It needs to be enforced and it isn’t. These tickets
are never given out and everyone knows it.

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nkrisc
There's an easy solution to this: the horn should be as loud inside the car as
it is outside the car.

~~~
YourCupOTea
As someone who walks 99% of the time this is something I have said on numerous
occasions. When someone honks at me when I am legally crossing the street with
a walk signal the car horn should be just as loud for you as it is for me.

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green-bottle
I feel this is a problem in the majority of Indian cities. Perhaps Mumbai
stands out here as it has more Traffic hence greater levels of unnecessary
honking.

Having worked at Bangalore and Hyderabad, living along/nearby any road with
regular traffic lead to poor sleep quality due to sound pollution from
senseless honking. Poorly enforced regulations regarding the hours when
construction is allowed don't help either.

~~~
aww_dang
Add the temple loudspeakers to the list. Also, public defecation and rampant
littering. S. Asia has a poor regard for public spaces.

~~~
fredley
For me the worst impact on sleep came from warring packs of stray dogs.

~~~
aww_dang
That never frustrated me as much. Somehow I find the actions of animals more
excusable than the rationalizations provided for man made noise pollution.

~~~
Jamwinner
Tolerating packs of stray fogs is the actions (or perhaps inaction) of men,
only manifest as dogs.

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cyberjunkie
I strongly believe the nature of a society is best visualized through its
traffic sense. Whether it's showing empathy, collaborating, cooperating,
patience, discipline, following rules, the anything-will-do attitude, etc.

I'm expecting the sabotaging nature will have a ton of people consciously
going out of the way to screw up everyone else.

~~~
raz32dust
That's not what I found at all. Traffic is chaotic, but people in general are
very cooperative. The cooperation just happens in an ad-hoc way rather than by
traffic rules. Yes, there is a lack of discipline, but I don't think any
society will behave differently if you put that many people in that small of a
space.

~~~
redditmigrant
Umm, Both Japan and HK have a lot of people in a small space and have 1/100th
of the absolute utter mindless chaos that prevails on the roads in
Delhi/Mumbai.

~~~
raz32dust
Agree with that, and that is interesting. Replied below to a similar comment.
You also have to consider that infrastructure is far less developed in Mumbai,
though.

~~~
sumedh
> You also have to consider that infrastructure is far less developed in
> Mumbai

That is not true atleast in Mumbai, the traffic signals work but lot of
drivers dont follow the signal because no one is going to catch them, if they
dont obey the lights, if they see a traffic cop most drivers will obey the
lights.

~~~
Jamwinner
Does enforcement count as infrastructure? As discussed, laws/signs without
enforcement do little. Is seeing police that rare that everyone would risk it?
Accountibility is foremost before progress.

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cryptozeus
This is great in idea but do seems like a gimmick. Do you honestly believe
everyone on that road can read your sign posted in English ? I can judge this
because I am from Bombay. After few min, crowd will just ignore the traffic
light and take off. I really hope this works though ! Its insane how bay the
noise pollution is.

~~~
tgsovlerkhgsel
No, but I assume most can read the numbers? People are good at seeing
patterns.

The countdown timers seem well-established so people know what they are.

The decibel meter is probably something people will figure out quickly (number
goes up when noise goes up).

The reset is something people will definitely figure out quickly - bottom
number goes over 85, countdown resets.

Are there no fines for ignoring traffic lights? Since this is deployed to only
a few traffic lights, seems like handing out a bunch of fines to everyone
ignoring the light once or twice should be enough for a sufficient number of
drivers to stop ignoring it.

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BurningFrog
Why India loves honking

[https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-origins-of-horn-
ok...](https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-origins-of-horn-ok-please-
indias-most-ubiquitous-phrase)

~~~
Polylactic_acid
That still doesn't explain why they honk at red lights when no overtaking is
going on.

~~~
topmonk
Because with enough honking, they can get the crowd to ignore the traffic
light and start to inch forward anyway.

~~~
jgtrosh
If the lights start spending 2x longer often, surely that will push people to
defy the light itself more than they did before.

Using group punishment to curb individual behaviour is always at risk of
undermining group obedience.

I wonder what variables affect most whether the policy will be successful or
detrimental.

~~~
lopmotr
If they're already so frustrated, some powerful force must be preventing them
running red lights. That force is obviously very strong so it probably works
on double-frustration pushiness too.

------
mirimir
But wait!

I doubt that their "decibel meters" are very directional. So perhaps drivers
that currently have the green could honk more, and so force the signal to skip
a cycle.

~~~
phyzome
Alternatively, only prolong the red, but allow the green to proceed to yellow
at the normal pace. (But then there's no cross-cutting traffic to keep people
at the red in place...)

~~~
mirimir
Right, give everyone red, until the noise level drops below some threshold.

But then, people with loud horns could shut down traffic.

~~~
zentiggr
And screw themselves in the process... not a net gain unless someone's wanting
to share a bad day, I suppose.

~~~
mirimir
Well, some American kids I know would do it for the lulz.

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Eikon
We have the same thing in France but to prevent speeding when a light is about
to go red.

On some lights, there’s a speed sensor, if a car exceeds the speed limit, it
instantly goes from green to yellow then red.

~~~
manojlds
That...sounds dangerous.

~~~
9nGQluzmnq3M
I presume the red is unilateral, meaning they don't (immediately) change the
other side to green in response.

~~~
ultrarunner
Even still, much like in India where drivers will learn to ignore the the
punishing light, it could be drivers in France will learn that running reds
does not increase a chance of collision because it’s only a signal of speed.

~~~
tgsovlerkhgsel
It only has to increase the chance of getting a really expensive ticket and
points on your license to discourage that.

~~~
ultrarunner
When a light turns yellow, a driver has to make a very quick calculus of a
number of factors, including estimating stopping duration and distance,
traffic presence, penalties, even judgement from other drivers. Some people
will place more weight on one or another of those factors. If there is any
significant portion of the population that places weight on "this isn't a real
red light; it is only meant as a nagging signal" then it seems that the
chances of a miscalculation (and high-speed collision) become greater overall.

~~~
tgsovlerkhgsel
The obvious solution would be to combine each nagging signal with a red-light
camera, at which point it becomes very "real".

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spectramax
They need better signage that explains the concept, looks like a lot of people
were just confused. Perhaps a sign in local language.

Also, wouldn't this cause issues with the general flow of the traffic? One
delay and you have cascading effects that perturbe macroscopic traffic
patterns at the city level.

This type of punishment would be detrimental in well coordinated traffic
(probably not Mumbai): Study of traffic is an entire field in scientific
research,
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_simulation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_simulation)

~~~
piyush_soni
It's mostly a one-off exercise (to teach people a lesson), they most probably
don't plan to continue doing it.

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forferdet
I think it's because of the cows! In India, the cows roam around freely, and
if you have ever been on the road with a cow in front of you, it does not give
a shit and will basically just stand there, eventually move when it feels like
it. The obvious action to alert something/someone hindering you is to use the
horn, "you are in my way", but that does not work for cows that well.

Over time, this weird culture developed of honking. Often honking in reply to
each other, like a rhythm almost.

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optimiz3
Was initially thinking this would be easy to troll, but then there's good old
fashioned mob justice.

~~~
cmroanirgo
Maybe there'll be an uptick in the number of handheld air horns sold... eg. A
pedestrian sees the lights about to change NOT in their favour: honk, and then
they've got time to cross.

See also: Cobra Effect

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect)

~~~
mrighele
From the video it seems that there need to be many cars honking together for
the threshold to be passed. A single pedestrian would probably not be able to
trigger it.

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AC_Fan
Nice idea, but honestly, horns do not even come into the top 10 problems for
most people. You have terrible roads and public transportation, corrupt
government-commercial nexuses and whatnot; is this seriously the most
important thing for you to focus on?

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duxup
It is an interesting idea.

I wonder if they just said it was happening, without actually changing
anything, if properly advertised would it have an impact?

~~~
Arnt
Many traffic lights in India have a visible countdown timer. You see it
counting to zero... or in this case resetting to 120 or whatever.

It looks like this:
[https://i.imgur.com/MynJKCl.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/MynJKCl.jpg)

~~~
duxup
Ah, thank you.

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dsfyu404ed
This seems like a great way to train people to ignore red lights. When the
lights just stay red people are going to just inch out until they block the
other traffic and then start going. Formerly traffic light controlled
intersections are going to turn into effectivly uncontrolled intersections
with the resulting decrease in throughput.

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seanmcdirmid
Chongqing just wound up banning horns in cars altogether, but that only works
in authoritarian contexts.

~~~
Barrin92
my first thought when reading the article was to simply suggest something
softer like a geometric delay on honking. First honk 10 seconds wait time, if
you honk to quickly push the delay up. With software nowadays finding some
strategy to punish serial honkers shouldn't be too difficult.

I don't think it requires an authoritarian state either, this would be pretty
normal regulation in any country.

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brian_
I've often wondered how often honking is actually useful, e.g. for preventing
an accident, versus just something to vent frustration. It seems some people
instinctively reach for the horn before the brakes.

~~~
manojlds
In India honking is used for signalling that we are coming etc. Many times
it's just about saying you do what you are doing, I am overtaking you so don't
move.

~~~
LorenPechtel
This is common in many parts of the world.

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Lorin
From my experience, Chennai had it 10x worse than Mumbai. Almost every truck
had "Honk please" hand drawn in various styles on their rears.

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TheOtherHobbes
Some countries have a different kind of punishment signal. Instead of being
connected to a camera and a fine system, the speed radar is linked to a red
light a few hundred yards later.

You can drive at the signed speed, or you can drive over the speed limit and
wait for longer at the red. It's your choice.

~~~
wtmt
So, collectively punish everyone on the road (in front of you) because you
crossed the limit instead of punishing you, the culprit, alone? That sounds
very weird as a punishment.

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qwerty456127
Whoever honks (in any country) without a legitimate need (to prevent an
emergency) should be fined severely or get his driving license postponed. Even
is somebody violates the rules, you should not honk unless you sincerely
believe an accident is going to happen if you don't honk.

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GoToRO
Honking in India is not the same as honking in your country. It has a
different meaning.

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JMTQp8lwXL
Tragedy of the commons. It only takes 1 person honking to delay everybody.

~~~
chapium
Not sure that applies here since one person honking won't gain them any
advantage. Very possibly a tragedy of some other sort.

~~~
Polylactic_acid
Yep. "Tragedy of the commons" specifically refers to when the individuals
incentives are different from the collectives incentives.

This case would just be trolling. You gain nothing other than the fun of
upsetting others.

~~~
Moru
As a pedestrian individual with an air horn you gain access to the road.

~~~
Polylactic_acid
Only if you are close to the road while it is currently running in the
direction you want. Seems like a difficult thing to abuse.

~~~
hailwren
Doesn't it incentivize honking when the light is green for you?

~~~
neurostimulant
They're already hongking all the time. If they're now only honk during green
light, that's already an improvement.

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remcob
From what a local told me, the car horns in Mumbai are by design less loud
than the ones in Europe or the US. This fits my experience, but that might
also be simply being used to the sound.

~~~
wtmt
Many people change the horn from the factory fitted one to another of their
liking (louder and/or different sound pattern/music), though it’s not legal. I
don’t believe that the factory fitted horns are less loud than in Europe or
the US.

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lorepieri
What if there was a tax on honking? Like 0.1 cent for every honking. With
advanced enough car technology I see this as being a real thing.

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mywacaday
Entertaining to watch but I can imagine kids with air horns would find it
hilarious to mess with drivers if this was rolled out widely.

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smn1234
in NYC the honking is endless. I imagine the noise pollution from a single
honk in midtown impacts thousands of people who are around the immediate
intersection and possibly 2-3 city blocks from it.

I had hoped Tesla would've pioneered mesh networking their cars with internal
alerting/signaling mechanisms. Eventually selling the tech to other
manufacturers.

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fulldecent2
Parabolic dish from hotel room directly to sound sensor will DOS the
intersection. And be difficult to detect.

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gfiorav
Bring it to New York

~~~
NovemberWhiskey
There's no-one honking at red lights in NYC; if you're getting honked there,
it's because you're stopped at the green.

~~~
gfiorav
If you live or spend time in a out-facing room, you'll the amount of
unnecessary beeping that goes on in this city. Honestly, I think I have it
good, all things considered, but coming from Europe it's very annoying to hear
people use the honk to "communicate" instead of "alert" (which is essentially
what this article is about).

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mosselman
This video seems off to me. Sure the idea is fun, but in no way am I convinced
that this really happened. This is just cute editing and CGI. At least as far
as I can tell.

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tobyhinloopen
Awful website keeps popping around

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ptah
does that mean you can extend a green signal by honking too?

