Sunday, June 8, 2008

Symphony of horns

Turning onto Saratoga Street today I was greeted by a horn blaring for about five seconds because the driver of an SUV was driving a bit too fast and therefore felt that I had cut him off. He drove right up my bumper with his gas guzzler in a ridiculous attempt to, I guess, intimidate me.

Later, while I was outside grilling in my aunt's yard there was another long horn burst when a pick-up truck came to a complete stop on Porter Street (or, technically, Visconti Road). The driver of the pick-up jumped out and went to the window of the stopped, beeping vehicle and started screaming that he had been cut off. He added, of course, a few curse words and the usual ignorant "go back where you came from."

Are tempers flaring because of the heat, or have we lost any sense of public decorum?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm not convinced the heat has as much to do with it as the current gas price (where stopping a car's momentum can almost make you sense the dollars and cents rolling out of your pocket).

I also notice in both cases you refer to large vehicles (SUV/Trucks).

In my experience the bigger the vehicle the bigger the sense of entitlement of the driver.

JFB

N.starluna said...

I wonder if auto makers made horns that sounded more like the old VW bugs ("meep meep") whether aggressive drivers would be less willing to lean on the horn in this way. If it doesn't sound aggressive maybe the aggressive drivers wouldn't use it.

Anonymous said...

i often wondered when these incidents occur, where are the drivers going? what is their destination? book store? i doubt it. to the gym to bench press and perfect their east boston persona?