Photo credit: Kaique Rocha
by Jeanine Botta, MPH, Co-founder, The Quiet Coalition
This Bloomberg article titled: “A Loud Warning from the Past about Living with Cars” covers a lot of ground, and leaves much to think about. Bloomberg contributor and vehicle expert David Zipper talks with author Matthew Jordan about Jordan’s book, “Danger Sound Klaxon!: The Horn That Changed History.” Zipper and Jordan explore the cultural and regulatory aspects of the klaxon, an electric horn that was introduced in the early 1900s. They also discuss subsequent vehicle horns and industry efforts to frame horn use as crucial to safety even when the horns are not being properly used. The book and interview provide detailed technical and scholarly information in understandable terms.
After World War I ended, dramatic shrieks of vehicle klaxons traumatized veterans, who were reminded of the klaxons used during gas attacks while in combat. As a result, many legislators passed laws restricting klaxon use, and in some cases, banned vehicle klaxons outright. This is a striking contrast to the absence of concern from most contemporary politicians about the effects of aggressive horn use in residential areas, or the use of loud horns to signify non-emergency events like remote start, locking a vehicle or leaving a spare key inside a car. This is even more troubling because we know so much more about the effects of noise on health than was known in the 1920s and 1930s. Yet our political and industry leaders seem unconcerned.
A theme that occurs more than once throughout the rise and fall of the klaxon is the lack of understanding of how the safety device was meant to be used. According to vehicle laws, and the driver manuals that are based on these laws, horns are intended to warn of imminent danger — not possible future danger. Jordan describes how klaxons were often used to tell nearby pedestrians, “I have a car, and here I come,” and “I don’t have to slow down because I’ve got the biggest horn on the market,” which also meant not slowing down for children because they would get out of the way.
“The rise of the klaxon helped re-engineer cities to be places for cars, rather than shared spaces. Pedestrians are the ones who were supposed to be getting out of the way,” he said. This does not signify safety but it was marketed as safety.
As disturbing and frustrating as the material is, the book’s stories are tempered with humor, some of which is about the lack of understanding of genuinely safe driving. One contemporary practice that is equally disturbing, frustrating and funny is the practice of honking the horn while driving through an alley that leads to a street, ostensibly to warn pedestrians who may or may not be there that they had better not be in your way when you exit the alley. Meanwhile, every resident whose homes face the alley have to hear this cacophonous intrusion in the name of “safety” throughout the day and night. A funny but maddening account of this belief system was brought to light and debunked when the news organization Block Club Chicago disseminated a survey and published the results and reader commentary.
In spite of the frustration about what Jordan’s book explores, it also lays groundwork for powerful arguments for approaching this problem in a new way.
