I love my Honda. I loved the Honda I had before this one. But no matter how much I appreciate the fact that the odometer can run to numbers not typically seen on an American car, there is no denying that all Hondas come with one very embarrassing feature.
The horn.
A Honda horn is the chihuahua of car horns. The horns on other cars, even small cars, they're Great Danes, or German shepherds, or even pit bulls. They mean business. If you do not move out of their way now, they say, you are roadkill.
The Honda horn is not scaring anybody. It can best be described as apologetic. "I don't wish to bother you," it says timidly to another car, "but if it wouldn't be too much trouble -- I'm so sorry to be asking this -- could you possibly move to the next lane, at your earliest convenience, of course?" Even if you lay on a Honda horn, it is only annoying, not intimidating.
The Honda horn is very distinctive. You look in the direction the honk came from, and you are surprised to see a car, because you thought the honk was a bike horn. And you just keep driving, because you are not moving out of the way for a bike horn.
I am always hesitant to use my horn. This is not because I am afraid of being rude. I am afraid of getting laughed at. "Can't you at least try to sound more intimidating?" I beg my horn. "You're embarrassing me here."
It is not surprising that the horn on a Japanese car is polite. The Japanese are probably incapable of making a car with a loud, rude horn. I imagine that when they first started sending cars to America, the timid horn was part of an effort to make us a kinder, gentler nation. But our streets are mean. So as I contemplate buying a new car sometime in the future, I beg the Japanese automakers: Please, please, don't send us chihuahuas to fight with the pit bulls.
3 comments:
perhaps a few stacco attacks on the horn will give this dog some bark. What would a slow laner think if shave-and-a-hair-cut was fast approaching. Or the always enjoyable universal rhythm of where-did-you-learn-to-drive-LOOOOOOOOOOOO-SSSSSSSER.
If you lose a tire you could tap out S-O-S. Or send the heralding call of taps to cars with flat tires on the side of the road - of ocarse you'd have to cram it into the 5 seconds that it takes to pass there car. Which might come out sounding like taps played by the synergy of Alvan and the Chipmonks meets Herbie.
Well, if you'd buy a REAL CAR, maybe it would have a real horn!
If by a "real" car you mean one that will be lucky to see 80,000 miles and spends more time in the shop than in use, I think I will stick with my Honda and its apologetic horn. It is approaching 175,000 miles and proud of it!
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