[ilanco]

Car horns are meant to be used in emergencies only, mostly to prevent accidents. Unfortunately in some countries like Israel (where I live) it has become more of a device for expressing anger or frustration.

[omegant]

It can be worst, in Egipt they use it for communication between drivers, things like: I'm passing you, don't go out that junktion, I'm going out the junktion better watchout... All that is done via the horns, which means a constant concert around the city..

[Brajeshwar]

Similar happenings here in India. Everyone honks for every 10th breath they take while driving.

[brazzy]

True story: I've worked on a QA workflow system for a large car maker. One of the tickets I saw said something like this:

Problem: Cars delivered to India come in for warranty repairs of the horns unusually often.

Root cause analysis: The horns are designed for 50k activation cycles. Due to the more intensive use in India, this is insufficient.

They were still debating whether to build in a sturdier horn everywhere or just for the Indian market...

[bryanlarsen]

IMO, car horns should be as loud inside the car as they are outside. That would teach people quite quickly that they're for emergency use only...

[ido]

India (where the author is from) is actually much worse in that respect, can't even compare the two.

[elnate]

I was once in a car driving through the Rajasthan desert and, with not a soul seen in the last hour, the driver still habitually tapped his horn every couple of minutes.

[jonmrodriguez]

What... That sounds surreal. He was honking for no reason? Was he aware he was doing it?

[ido]

In India it's somehow considered a safty measure to just honk all the time. You'd see big trucks with stickers "please honk" on their rear-bumper, sepposedly they won't know you're there otherwise.

[kaybe]

German law states it can be used as a signal before passing. Nobody does it though, which is a good thing.

[darklajid]

Sure about that? You can use your lights to indicate that you're planning to take over, but the horn? Never heard about that one. Interesting.

[kaybe]

"§5 StVO Überholen (5) Außerhalb geschlossener Ortschaften darf das Überholen durch kurze Schall- oder Leuchtzeichen angekündigt werden. .."

"§5 Passing (5) Outside of cities/villages it is allowed to notify of a planned passing by short sound or light indicators. " (Uff, legalese is hard to translate.)