WATCH: Engineer makes ‘polite car horns’ for a more pleasant driving experience
Image: Screen grab via Youtube/Mark Rober
Anyone who’s driven in a major city knows how rough traffic can get—and how this involves a lot of angry honking.
American Youtuber Mark Rober thought that the usual drive could be a lot more pleasant with better communication on the road. “Ninety nine percent of the time I use my horn, I’m not trying to avoid a car accident, I’m trying to let them know it’s time to stop texting,” he explains.
However, his car only leaves an option for a long honk, which makes him sound too aggressive for a gentle reminder.
The mechanical engineer sought out improving the one-size-fits-all horn and installed his own buttons to fit various situations.
The courtesy honk button is a polite reminder to drivers, to be used in situations such as telling another driver to go when the light is green.
Another one is even more “chill” and is meant for pedestrians: it sounds more like R2-D2 than a honk so that you won’t sound inconsiderate when you just don’t want to hit someone.
But still, there are extreme situations that calls for a blaring horn, and for that, Rober has a special red button that when pushed sounds like an incoming train.
In case you’d like to make your own daily drive a little nicer, you can see how Rober installed his custom horns and how he uses them every day:
To make the horns a permanent installment, a part of the dashboard had to be removed and customized. The materials include a soundboard, downloaded sound effects in a USB, buttons, a PA speaker, a train horn and an inverter.
For those who find the DIY horns a bit too tasking, let’s hope car manufacturers include these in the next car upgrade. JB
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