When a Driver Honks their Horn at you....

[J4CKO]

I think I have been lucky, have not been hooted at but then my commute is quite rural and gernally the drivers seem to be reasonably intelligent, I do tend to make life easy for them when I can and acknowledge someone if they have waited for me so I think you build up abit of Karma if you use the same route every day at the same time as you see the same drivers, one positive gesture and you become less of an inconvenience and they actually seem to get slightly protective, he may be a pain in the arse cyclist but he is our pain in the arse cyclist.

I find that driving in crap areas seems to bring more problems, knuckle draggers dont get cycling and we tend to just end up a target, its not all one sided, some who you would expect better from in big posh cars can be the worst.

I am trying not to react negatively to situations but I am a little prone to red mist but generally just laughing it off is the best policy, or remembering the registration and biding your time, muhahahahah...

 

[CotterPin]

For some, as in the scummies that live further up the street, it is their preferred means of communication. Scummie snr pulls his scum wagon onto their drive and before he's off the road he's hit 3 long blasts of his horn to Mrs Scummie and all the little scummy jnrs. And there are a lot of them. And leaving is even worse about 5 blasts on the hooter every time. Sometimes this happens 5 or 6 times on a saturday after noon as they are constantly coming and going and also at 8am on a sunday morning .

Do you s'pose people like this have actually lost the ability to speak and just go "beep beep" to each other, a bit like Mr Toad?

I was waiting on the corner of a side street recently with some friends before we headed off on a bike ride. One of us was standing in the road of the side turning. A car turned slowly into the side road and came alongside my friend who had not noticed. The driver was right alongside my friend - her window was wound down and she could have spoken to him to ask him to move. But no - she beeped her horn. Made my mate jump out of his skin!

It just seemed weird to me that she did not actually talk to him but resorted to using the horn. Perhaps she can't talk either and goes home to talk in "beep beep" language to her family.

 

[Lazy-Commuter]

I think I have been lucky, have not been hooted at but then my commute is quite rural and gernally the drivers seem to be reasonably intelligent, I do tend to make life easy for them when I can and acknowledge someone if they have waited for me so I think you build up abit of Karma if you use the same route every day at the same time as you see the same drivers, one positive gesture and you become less of an inconvenience and they actually seem to get slightly protective, he may be a pain in the arse cyclist but he is our pain in the arse cyclist.

I find that driving in crap areas seems to bring more problems, knuckle draggers dont get cycling and we tend to just end up a target, its not all one sided, some who you would expect better from in big posh cars can be the worst.

I am trying not to react negatively to situations but I am a little prone to red mist but generally just laughing it off is the best policy, or remembering the registration and biding your time, muhahahahah...

I'll echo all that top bit. The first bit of my commute is a mile or so up a quiet lane which is a no through road, much of it being (just) wide enough for only one car. There's not many houses up there: some big and posh and some smaller and, er, not quite so posh. Inevitably, I see mostly the same faces at the same times and have managed to build up a bit of a rapport with many of them. There's a couple of blokes with vans who live right up the top of the hill (but not together!!) that I see quite often and they will always stop in a passing place and wait for me to puff my way up the hill. I always say "thanks" and they'll always smile and wave back. Once or twice, I've seen one or other of them getting out of the van in the evening on my way home, so I stopped and said "hi" and had a bit of banter.

On the other hand, there's one house which I think may have been converted into "executive flats" or somesuch and most of the people going in or out of there seem to be full of their own importance, with the usual impatience and arrogance. Despite my best smiley wavey efforts I can't break the ice with any of them and have had a few close overtakes and general impatience from them.

The two housing estates that I cross also seem to be populated by far less patient people .. especially the "posher"* one of the two.

* basically the same as the other estate, just bigger mortgages.

 

[mm101]

Good first post mm101, .

I think the horn is just used far too much. I've never used the horn as a motorist, I just don't see the point in many situations when people routinely honk.

It always amuses me when I get honked on a dual carriageway when the other lane is completely empty. How stupid and sad do you have to be to honk someone that there is an entire lane to my right where you can overtake at whatever speed you want with ease.

Thanks marin and LC

A lot of motorists are ignorant of the HC and probably think a cyclist is not entitled to ride on a dual carriage way. Confusing it with M-way regs.

It is very hard but i do feel trying to adopt a zen like approach to peoples' unpleasantness helps. Is what i try and do. Yes bad behaviour is galling but some people are just ignorant and there is not much we can do about that.

I try (and it is hard!!) not to lower myself to their level. In situations like that i think that someone has to rise above it and be the grown-up.

 

[hackbike 666]

It wouldn't occur to the average motorist that cycling is an enjoyable

A motorist in my messroom at work asked me whether I still enjoyed cycling the other day and I actually admitted I don't anymore.

Lots of reasons,health and stuff but also the general road behaviour of every road user out there.

Now I only do it for some sort of exercise.

 

[ufkacbln]

When I was in the RN and working at the Royal Naval Hospital at Haslar. The commute involved a narrow bridge with a blind summit. It was unasafe to overtake, but someone would try unless you were in Primary.

One morning I had a BMW behind me and he started on the horn.

Now as I was doing nothing wrong I had to assume that he was trying to get my attention as something was wrong with the bike, so I signalled my intention, stopped and checked my panniers, rear tyre and found nothing wrong, so I shrugged my shoulders, to a fit of swearing and beeping.

Now by this time the lights have changed and unknown to Mr BMW there is traffic coming up the other side, so I now dismount and he accelarates up the bridge to come face to face with a line of 6 cars who now start tooting him, and he is forced to reverse back down the bridge.

A few minutes later I was standing beside two large and armed MOD Police officers and gave him a friendly wave as he passed.

 

[2Loose]

When I was in the RN and working at the Royal Naval Hospital at Haslar. The commute involved a narrow bridge with a blind summit. It was unasafe to overtake, but someone would try unless you were in Primary.

One morning I had a BMW behind me and he started on the horn.

Now as I was doing nothing wrong I had to assume that he was trying to get my attention as something was wrong with the bike, so I signalled my intention, stopped and checked my panniers, rear tyre and found nothing wrong, so I shrugged my shoulders, to a fit of swearing and beeping.

Now by this time the lights have changed and unknown to Mr BMW there is traffic coming up the other side, so I now dismount and he accelarates up the bridge to come face to face with a line of 6 cars who now start tooting him, and he is forced to reverse back down the bridge.

A few minutes later I was standing beside two large and armed MOD Police officers and gave him a friendly wave as he passed.

Class

 

[CotterPin]

I am not sure why the cabbie beeped his horn at me last night as I cycled up King William Street in the City. I think it might have been because he would prefer to look at the back of the bus that was 100 metres in front of me, rather than my bum. I am not sure whether I should be upset or not.

 

[thomas]

I am not sure why the cabbie beeped his horn at me last night as I cycled up King William Street in the City. I think it might have been because he would prefer to look at the back of the bus that was 100 metres in front of me, rather than my bum. I am not sure whether I should be upset or not.

Depends which is bigger

 

[swee'pea99]

Since posting two days ago about how I never ever get honked, I've been honked twice. I won't be contributing to any p*****e threads anytime soon, that's for sure...

 

[purplepolly]

That would be a really bad idea. I replied to one of those saying I hadn't had a puncture in 2 years of schwalbe-marathon-tyred-bike ownership and often cycled through pools of glass. Barely a week later I was wheeling the bike out from the stand at work in a torrential rainstorm and realised the back tyre was flat. And it was about 2 years since I'd last read the instructions on removing the sram dual drive. That'll teach me.

 

[XmisterIS]

Ah!

If I am in the wrong (like I've pulled a crazy manoeuvre) then I will apologise.

If, however, they are just being a petrol-powered a$$hole, I insult them in German.

It works well because it lets me blow of steam without getting confrontational - normally the offender just looks at me with a very confused expression!

Here are some choice expressions:

"Scheisse! Was machst du? Du bist ein fettes Arschloch!"

"Achtung! Wo lerntest du fahren? Du bist ein Bloedian!"

 

[Nigeyy]

I think I've been to about 10 different countries -the UK wins hands down on more appropriate horn usage.

E.g. here in the States (at least in the Boston area) it's completely the norm to be waiting in a traffic line and have somebody leaning on their horn behind you.

Depending on the way I drive home, I have to take a left moving into the left hand lane of two lanes in the direction I'm going in (equivalent of a right in the UK) to pull into the road I live on. Even if I indicate appropriately giving people behind me plenty (plenty!!) of time, I've had complete and utter t*ats lean on their horn as I inconvenience them by strangely waiting for a safe gap in oncoming traffic. The fact they weren't paying attention until they realized it was too late to pull into the empty lane beside them just doesn't seem to equate to them.

It's just considered normal behaviour! As bad as some things are, honestly, live outside the UK and then you realize how good the UK is in some aspects. That's not to say it's great, just less worse!

Do you have experience of the 'orn in other countries then?

 

[johnnyh]

I always thought it was a driver saying "wow, what a nice bike, you are so lucky where as I am a lard arse loser and stuck in this car."

 

[Arch]

Do you have experience of the 'orn in other countries then?

I spent a week in Copenhagen a couple of years back, staying centrally, walking around the city every day, and heard a horn used about twice... Imagine walking around central London for a week, you'd lose count!

I've cycled in France, and you occasionally get bipped, but it really is only "hello, I'm here, and coming past", and then they proceed to overtake you on the other side of the road.