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Buenos dias. It’s Tuesday, and we’ll look at the dangers of tooting your own horn.
Beep, beep! You’re breaking the law.
Forward this to friends and family and see how surprised they are: Honking the horn of your car in New York City is often illegal.
Wait, what? How long has this been going on? And does anyone know?
My colleague, Erin Nolan, did some digging.
The current laws against honking have been on the books since the 1970s. “But really, it’s been illegal since 1936,” she said. That’s when the “prolonged and unreasonable blowing of a horn” was outlawed in New York.
Of course, it’s legal to use your horn when it’s needed for safety reasons. But now, tooting your horn when there is no “imminent danger” is a violation of New York City’s noise code.
But you’d never know horn blowing was illegal by standing on an Upper West Side street corner. “I was on 89th Street and Columbus Avenue,” Erin said, “and the second the traffic light turned green, there was already just tons of honking.”
Erin saw a person in the crosswalk, “and the person had the right of the way,” she said, but a dump truck was honking at the person. “It was pretty noisy,” she said.
One thing I wondered was whether the horns of the 1930s were more or less annoying than the horns we have today. Together, we listened to a YouTube video of a 1930 Ford Model A horn: “Eeerrrrrreeuuuuuughhhhh” sounded a bit like an angry cat in a blender. Unpleasant!
What should you do if you hear honking? Erin said that you can call 311 or your local police precinct, but don’t expect any relief or recourse. “All they can do is say they’ll investigate it,” she said. “But by the time they get there…” The way she trailed off was terrifying.
You may be thinking, So what? Who cares about honking?
Erin spoke with two psychologists who have studied the effects of noise. According to the studies, over a long period of time, noise pollution “can cause heart conditions, stress and all sorts of bad effects on the body,” Erin said. “Dwight Hennessy at Buffalo State University talked about how noise can just make you a more irritable person over time — even if you don’t realize it. Just constantly being exposed to that level of noise can make you less social, angry and more impatient.”
So, if the people honking are angry, and the honking is making people angry, then what do we get?
Erin laughed. “A really angry bunch of people,” she said.
The thing to remember is that New York City is unique. There are oblivious pedestrians, double-parkers, constant truck deliveries. People often honk because they’re frustrated. And they get frustrated because they expect other people to follow the same unwritten rules of the road that they follow.
“The unwritten rules differ depending on where you’re from and who you grew up driving with,” Erin explained. “The drivers in New York City come from all over the world. So the unwritten rules that people in New York learned to drive with are all completely different. That’s part of the reason that New York driving culture is possibly so aggressive and maddening — it is because of how diverse the city is. Which is obviously one of the hallmarks of the city, and one of the things that makes it so great. But it might also make driving here difficult sometimes.”
Read Erin’s full story about honking here.
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Allerton Avenue
Dear Diary:
I was a girl going to summer camp for the first time. My mother, my sister and I boarded the train at Allerton Avenue in the Bronx to go to the drop-off point.
Getting on the train at the same time was a young professional woman who, we learned, worked in pediatric recreation at Bellevue Hospital and adored children.
My new friend, Sadie Brown, had the magic touch. In no time at all, I was swinging my legs, jumping up and down and telling her my whole life story.
Later, I sent her a postcard from camp. She replied by sending me my first special delivery letter on beautiful little-girl stationery. I have it to this day.
“I like children of all ages,” she wrote, “and your smile was so magnetic, I felt that I would like to get to know you.” She signed the letter, “Your Train Mate.” I was hooked.
From that day forward, Sadie and I remained faithful train mates until she died over 50 years later. She was my special friend, teacher and mentor through constant correspondence, phone calls and visits through the years.
I visited her in Florida the year before she died and wrote a memorial of our lifelong “train mate” friendship that was read at her funeral service.
“This is New York,” I can hear Sadie saying now. “You never know who you’ll sit next to on the train!”
—Fran Quittel
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