Occasionally when you’re driving, you’ll make a mistake and perhaps need to adjust and it can create some awkward situations. Like today, my dad ended up in the wrong lane to go straight instead of turn at a light. He had to cut in line to make sure we could go the right way. It’d be nice if we could communicate “sorry, I screwed up. Excuse me. I just need to slip in there.”
Right now all we have for inter car communication is the horn, which has kind of an aggressive implication to it. This is for trying to de-escalate potential road rage.
Traffic is generally bad in the city I live in. Years ago I was driving when someone accidentally cut me off. I started to get mad when suddenly the person who cut me off held up a sign I could see through their back window that said “Sorry!”. The car belonged to a business and they gave their driver a sign on a handle they could hold up if they needed to. It immediately diffused the situation and made me smile. Little things in life really help.
Warning lights. In France people do a short blink with the hazard lights to say thank you or sorry.
I think that’s fairly common everywhere
Not in Belgium. People would have no idea what is going on if you do that here. They would probably think you are about to have to slam on your brakes (hazards are put on when you have to abruptly slow down)
If you have time to activate your 4-way flashers before braking, you didn’t need to. And if you need to abruptly brake and you reach for the 4 way flasher, it too late to brake.
I heard this from the Balkans aswell, never seen it in Germany.
I would say its common in Germany as well
“sorry, I screwed up. Excuse me. I just need to slip in there.”
My problem with this is that the screw up is the slipping in. In other words, accidents happen and there’s nothing wrong with apologizing for something you already did by accident – but in this case, it’s preemptively apologizing for doing something on purpose that you know is wrong, cutting someone off because you already were late/past where you need to go.
If you cut someone off because you didn’t see them and you thought it was safe, that’s a good reason to apologize. Mistakes happen and it’s good to take accountability.
If you’re seeing that it’s not really safe and the other guy is going to have to slam his brakes because you’re going to consciously on purpose cut him off, then yeah you’re just being a shitty driver on purpose. Apologizing for something you knowingly did on purpose and will do again? That just makes you a liar on top of that.
Was going to point out something similar. A good driver occasionally misses an exit. A bad driver never does.
OP, if you’re in the wrong lane and there are cars around you, you continue and find a way to get back on track in a thoughtout way. You don’t just cut into a lane where people can’t react to your action because they’re supposed to pay attention to everything BUT you. It creates a dangerous situation, in your case probably not life threatening, but you could mess up someone’s property to save 30 seconds.
This was my exact thought.
People who drive like they walk are either too stupid or ignorant to understand that there are over 3 LITERAL TONS of force being used to “just-squeeze-by, pardon-sorry.”
To quote questionably-ethically-dubious Louis CK, "BuT ThAt’S nOt My FaVoRiTe WaY!!!
If you missed your turn, that sucks, now you spend an extra 2 - 4 minutes going the long way around.
Be better, drive better, pay more attention. If you got unlucky and the road or signage sucks, oh well.
This here. Once you are too late, you are too late. Just take the next exit and drive back.
No sorry could excuse a deadly accident.
Various horn sounds is a good idea. I always wanted text messaging displayed on the vehicle.
Most drivers already don’t use or know 60% of the capabilities of their vehicles, adding more is just adding distractions to already crappy drivers.
Lane assists, cruise control, radar assists, parking assists, hazard lights, turn signals, oil pressure sensors, tire pressure sensors, fluid level sensors, driving modes, alternator charge readers, low gear throttle assists, hill assists, ‘fog’ lights, daylight driving lights, mirror defrosters, smooth braking modes…
I have been in so many cars and watched people just… Not use these tools and then complain about something related to it.
Can’t fix stoopid
Yeah, but just think: a message screen on the back of the vehicle could be used to display
distracting advertscarefully curated content from our trusted partners when it’s not in use to acaptive and unwillingdelighted audience with the revenue being used tooffset the cost of running the vehiclehaha fuck you.Well… that’s true.
Even just emoji. A thumbs up and a middle finger could be a good start.
I used to have a car with a very aggressive horn and never wanted to use it because it did sound like I was cussing something out. I couldn’t get the light “beep beep” of communication, only the FUCK OFF ASSHOLE honk.
Now have a different car and can use the horn as a communication by short tap tap.
But the wave is the apology. I have had people accidentally cut me off and when I swerve to pass have gotten a wave and mouthed sorry.
“A bad driver never misses their exit”
Sometimes you make a mistake and miss your exit or end up in the wrong lane. That’s on you. Re-route, follow the lane you’re in, take the next safe turn/exit/lane change to get back on track; you don’t just cut in line, forcing others to correct for your own mistakes. That’s a great way to create unsafe conditions, end up in accidents, and hurt people. It’s not just about peoples ego/anger, it’s genuinely dangerous.
Your father doesn’t need a ‘sorry’ button, he needs to correct his poor driving behaviour and not endanger himself, you, or others on the road.
1000% don’t make others pay for your mistake.
Yeah. My dad is an atrocious driver who has gotten lucky so far.
I’m the great driver I am because my dad is just like that.
He’s a shining example of what not to do.
Driving involves a lot of soft decisions. Any action can be risky, even a regular lane change. But we still do lane changes all the time. Ultimately it’s up to us to judge.
Point is, I think there are cases where making a last minute lane change can be totally safe, eg if the cars in the other lane are already stopped.
if it was totally safe then there’s nothing to apologize for
There are many things in life that are inconvenient to others without harming them
What causes accidents are not the cars and conditions you see, but the ones you don’t.
Humans aren’t machines, they make mistakes. And cars have a lot more blind spots than we realize.
That’s why we have rules. If we are predictable and follow the rules, even when we don’t see anything that could stop us from taking a shortcut, then we’re being considerably safer.
Keep in mind that, on the road, it’s not just your own safety you need to ensure. An accident can also harm other people, so the more reason to prevent them.
You hit on another driving quote I love:
“Don’t be courteous, be predictable.”
But driving rules are not precise. For example, when doing a lane change, how much space should you have in the lane you are entering? It’s entirely up to us to judge.
So obviously don’t drive on the wrong side of the road whenever you feel like it, but if you for example want to squeeze into a lane of stopped cars (while your lane is also stopped), I don’t see the issue
It is all prescribed in the rules, they are precise. Even if they aren’t precise, the judiciary decides what the rules mean, law has no ambiguity, and if there is, the ambiguity is resolved by a judge.
You need 2 seconds between every vehicle, and to be able to fully see the vehicle in front of you. When changing lane, you need to fully see the vehicle in your side mirror, center mirror if it’s a truck.
Come on people, that’s all in the paper exam for your licence.
in my state the driver manual specially states to change lanes with enough space that you can see in your rear view mirror both headlights of the car your getting in front of
Came here to drop that same quote. 🫡
How does your comment have so many upvotes when it doesn’t address the actual topic about a new horn sound at all? It’s just finger wagging.
A good example of why humanity is doomed: people are shackled to their reflexive need to jerk off their egos at any and every opportunity they see rather than focus on thinking.
Instead of addressing the horn sound itself, I’ve addressed the underlying need/desire for it.
Addding a sorry button wouldn’t make things safer or chill tempers, it’d just empower more people to make dangerous moves; playing it off as fine because ‘I pressed the sorry button, people should be ok with me endangering them’
The rules of the road exist for good reason. When people don’t follow them, it effects more than just themselves and has cost many people their lives through no fault of their own.
Be a better driver; don’t make others pay for your poor planning and judgement.
Even OP appears to agree with this, given their reply and upvote on my comment.
A good example of why humanity is doomed: people are shackled to their reflexive need to jerk off their egos at any and every opportunity they see rather than focus on thinking.
An interesting double-standard you have there.
Implying I’m somehow a bad person for pointing out and discussing the consequences of these choices instead of just patting OP on the back and agreeing with their desire - without actually providing any meaningful counter argument to what I’ve said.
If the OP had only written “Horns should come equipped with different sounds to better communicate with other drivers”, which is the overarching gist of what they were musing, the thread would be different. But they added the story which prompted the thought. Instead of considering the benefits, or even drawbacks, of the proposed suggestion- you fixated on the story itself, seeing a great opportunity to interject some moralizing and also indirectly boast to the rest of the readers about what a good driver you think you are. There’s nothing to debated about what you wrote, everything you said is correct.
But it’s easy to admonish others opening up to explain a mistake by clubbing them with an imagined perfect scenario.
Should all people be better drivers? Yes, of course. Is that realistic? No. And is it really related to the actual proposal the OP opined on? Very tentatively.
Also, I certainly don’t think you are a bad person. A very human person. Just like me. And all the upvoters who are now thinking “Yeah, OP’s dad should be a better driver! And thinking that makes me feel better about myself” instead thinking about auditorial communication.
In my country it is forbidden to use your horn unless there is a dangerous situation.
There’s already a gesture 🖐️ and there’s blinking your hazard lights.
Or your dad could accept that he’s going to travel a tiny bit further than he originally intended, and reroute with a u-turn, or a block circle, or a parking lot turn, or something similar. No invasive lane change. No need to apologise for an invasive lane change. No need for a special horn to communicate an apology for an invasive lane change. You don’t need to apologise for something you don’t make into someone else’s problem.
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I think it’s healthier for everybody to accept that mistakes happen, and tolerate the correction, knowing that one day you might make the mistake too.
An invasive lane change costs a few seconds to the other person, while rerouting will usually cost at least a minute. In other words, if we imagine everybody in the world makes that mistake once a month, then forcing everybody to reroute rather than do an invasive lane change, costs the world thousands of more hours.
No lol, it is the driver that makes the mistake that needs to accept the mistake, not the other way around.
This is not a blind choice between adding a minute to one person’s commute or adding ten seconds to five people’s commutes. This is a man who failed to do the most basic, bare minimum cost of driving around in a machine that can and does kill people on a regular basis: paying attention. Others shouldn’t be endangered to save someone from an inconvenience. A sudden, illegal maneuver, even at low speed, introduces more danger and unpredictability where we want less. Why give MORE trust to someone who is actively engaged in demonstrating they should not be trusted?
“Sorry I endangered your life, but I cannot be bothered to reroute for a minute.”
Yes mistakes happen, but the healthier solution is for people to accept the consequences of their actions. Your view is a manifest to the egocentric society we decry every so often.
If someone crashs into you doing an invasive lane change (or any other mistake correction) I hope you’re thankful for them not adding to the world’s wasted hours.
What the fuck man.
Endangered life? Where did OP say they endangered someone’s life? It could have been a lane change in stopped traffic. Which is 100% safe, albeit a bit annoying to the person you cut off. I assume OP knows the difference between annoying and unsafe.
You used the word invasive lane change.
If the lane next to you has stopped traffic, but you cut into a gap between cars and edge in as the traffic begins to move again, that is an “invasive” but also 100% safe move.
It sounds like you’ve never driven before.
What is invasive about that, and why would you have to say sorry? It doesn’t sound dangerous is everyone is stopped at the same light.
It is not a “sorry” horn, but flashing your hazards once or twice is how to say “thank you” to the car behind you that lets you in.
Well ideally you would change lanes where you have ample space to just fit in without impacting the traffic. Cutting in stopped traffic is more chaotic. But I agree that I don’t think it’s a big deal
if it’s 100% safe there’s no need to apologize!
Use “safe lane change” then, maybe? Instead of making up scenarios afterwards, where invasive equals safe.
But I feel you have a problem admitting mistakes in general, not just when it comes to traffic.
If you think I don’t drive, I think you shouldn’t drive.
The word “invasive” doesn’t even matter here. That was a word you introduced and I was just using it too. But if you want, we can use OP’s terminology. OP said cut in line, you responded saying not to do that, and I’m saying that it’s fine and can be totally safe.
I flash my hazard lights a few times.
You deserve to be able to retire after someone from Shark Tank takes your idea and makes it mandatory on all vehicles.
As a league of legends player, there is no signal that can universally be accepted to mean a specific thing. It would be abused by bad actors.
That being said, making a wrong turn is more acceptable than being an asshole or endangering other’s lives or property. Pay more attention or accept the consequences.
Relevance to the post: 5%
A horn thats intended to mean sorry would be misused or misinterpreted on purpose.
Drive better so you dont need to apologize
Please point to the inconsistency
it’s not inconsistent, it’s just talking about league in a post about driving lmao
“This situation is a lot like this other situation, and it did not work out there, and people tend to have similar emotions in these two scenarios”
Road rage is no more logical than league rage, which is why i compared the two. An illogical person hearing/maliciously using a tool intended for genuine apology will very quickly be rewritten as the “youre a coward” horn or “you should be telling me sorry” horn or something dumb
If you don’t see the similarity, then maybe you don’t drive a car lol
It’s not the horn itself but how it’s used.
Long blast = angry Two quick bips = not angry One bip = I’m just letting you know I’m here
Two long blasts - The El Dude Brothers
What if its La Cucaracha?
Everybody has to get out of their cars and dance!
I don’t know if it’s my car or me, but I’ve always find very difficult to modulate my horn, like if I try to have it do bips, they don’t come out, I need to really punch it which means they won’t be quickly one after the other. I need more horn practice.
There are some horns that are just impossible to modulate the length of. Dodge for sure has this problem as the direct to horn wiring is gone. They now run the horn through the body control module. The physical tap of the horn is now lost essentially as it instructs the horn to sound off for its predetermined amount of time. No polite nips of horn sound to wake a driver at a light, but a full on FU to get going!
There are more tech devices to buy that help with this stupidity that tech has created. Progress?
Big Beats are the best, get high all the time
I like it when the long blast is 5 seconds plus, I can’t not find that funny
Have you ever visited any mainland European country??
Usage is also country specific. Different countries use different horn communication
In situations where you’re basically saying, “thank you for being a better driver than me,” opening your window and putting out your hand with all fingers fully spread is the correct gesture. For me at least, it dissipates my anger when someone has cut me off, because at least they’re acknowledging and apologizing. I usually assume the reason is because shitty GPS gave them impossible directions.
I’d love a 2nd quieter & apologetic horn in my car. When driving electric behind pedestrians it often takes them some time to realize that there is a car driving behind them, and I don’t want to use my regular horn to ask them to let me pass.
I’m in Australia and I don’t honk at all when I’m in the wrong… I put my hand up passively at least twice, once when I’m being let in and second time when I’m leaving the intersection.
When I say “put my hand up” I mean I extend my arm, all my fingers are together like I’m saying Hi but the hand stays still… This symbol in Australia is what you do to say thanks to people letting you get in front of them and what you do to say sorry to people you’ve cut off.
we kinda do that in the US midwest but it’s more of a thanks for letting me in, the apology sign is a middle finger lmao
Where I’m at, you turn on the hazard to say thanks to people behind you, If you get flashed with brights, message received.
I hate to be the one to break it to you, but you’ve been heiling Hitler all this time
Hahaha not the way I hold my hand. My palm is pointed at the person giving away.
