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Is freedom of honking in the constitution?


Is Freedom of Honking in the Constitution?
A careful driver is one who honks his horn when he goes through a red light.http://en.thinkexist.com/i/sq/as4.gif Henry Morgan
When was the last time while driving when your mate, sitting next to you in the car, sarcastically and maybe out of fear, said “He seems in a bit too hurry. Let him go ahead,” or when did you last day “Where would you go there? Hell!” out of anger when the driver behind you honked?
I am sure that it must have not been long back when a stupid driver irritated you with all those grating honks. But have you ever thought that you might be one of those drivers too? Yes, I know, you’ll say “It’s not me, it’s them” but you too at some point have behaved like “them” and irritated others. 
Honking has been a menace to people on the roads and living by the roadsides. The motorists honk at the people and the vehicles around unnecessarily. You cannot blame this on the ‘Horn Ok Please’ of the trucks. It is the people’s irrationality and impatience that is to be held responsible.
If you’re in the traffic jam, they’ll honk; you’re moving at a reasonable pace, they’ll honk; you’re on your side of the road and they have enough space to go, they’ll still honk just because there is a free horn and the traffic cops are too lousy to catch hold of them. What do they expect, the car in the front to move up and fly like its out from some sci-fi movie?
January 1, 2012 was observed as the ‘No Honking Day’ by an NGO in Delhi, worried about the growing nuisance of needless honking. But how many of us in Kashmir know that there was one such day as well, let alone observing it? It’s because we really don’t care.
Honking is banned by the Supreme Court near the hospitals, traffic signals, traffic jams, schools and other no honking zones. But do we care about the patients who’ve just fallen asleep after a miserably long time of pain? Or the school students trying hard to concentrate? Or the driver ahead who suffers from chronic migraine? No! This is what is called being an irresponsible driver and citizen.
In New York, an annoyed resident sent an email to the chief of the Taxi and Limousine Commission, after being terribly frustrated by the honking outside his window every day. The chief took the threat seriously and texted around 13000 taxi drivers : Remember tht honking is against d law except wen warning of imminent danger… be a good neighbor and save urself a $350 summons—honk ONLY in an emergency! Yet, the drivers didn’t take the warning seriously.
A horn in your car is not meant to be blown every other second. It is for the emergency, like you have a patient in the car and immediately need to get him to the hospital. You honk at the car in front of you and take your way. But that is not what is happening at all. Everyone keeps on honking just like that and if God forbid they have any real problem and they honk, no one’s going to believe them.
On the other hand there are a few drivers, who really don’t believe in touching the horn. I was one of them when I learnt driving and remember the guy who taught me to drive saying “Jasindah, there’s always a rear view mirror and a horn in the car”. Drivers like these would suddenly move ahead at the speed of light just to the right or even left of you at times and you’d be like ‘Woah! Thank God I didn’t go a little to that side.’
But nevertheless, the quantum of the former drivers is more. We should note that honking can have serious effects like annoyance, hearing impairment, stress, hypertension and increase the rate of accidents.
I wish the honking were not free and its price hiked like that of petrol. And like people switched from petrol to LPG, they’d switch from irritable honking to patience.
Let’s keep a reminder to observe the No Honking Day on January 01, 2013 and start practicing for it from today.
Last but not the least, the major attraction of the No Honking Day this year was the participation of two dogs that showed that ‘Even the dogs don’t bark pointlessly.’

Jasindah Mir

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