Is Freedom of Honking in the Constitution?
“A
careful driver is one who honks his horn when
he goes through a red light.”
 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
0 comments:
Post a Comment