I'm in two minds about this one.... http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lansey/loud-bicycle-car-horns-for-cyclists
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Infrastructure
Loud Bike Horn Kickstarter
(21 posts)-
Posted 11 years ago #
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I'm not sure triggering the driver reflex of looking for a car will help.
Allow me to demonstrate. Watch the players in the white tops and count the number of passes they make. It's basdonkulously hard to count when there's more than one pass happening at a time, but try it anyway:
Posted 11 years ago # -
How does this loud horn trump the Air Zound or similar air horns for bikes? They sound like lorries, don't they?
Posted 11 years ago # -
I'm not sure triggering the driver reflex of looking for a car will help.
Allow me to demonstrate.
In this case wouldn't you be making yourself more like a car, and therefore more likely to get a desired response (for instance, driver starts pulling out onto a roundabout and horn blasts - they may well stop. Bike bell rings, not so much?
Posted 11 years ago # -
cable tie an airhorn, as found @ sporting events,onto your bars, these have worked for me !
Posted 11 years ago # -
@Dave: I theorise that the thing you look for when you hear a car horn is a car. The thing you fail to spot because you're busy looking for a car is a cyclist.
Posted 11 years ago # -
@Dave - I once was sat behind a car at a set of traffic lights that were red. They changed to green, but the driver was too busy looking at his phone to notice. I decided to ring my bell to try to get his attention to the red light, and felt a right pillock, as it was clearly totally ineffective / inaudible. So in that scenario, aye, a horn would have been better.
Thankfully, someone behind me blasted their horn which got the traffic moving.
Posted 11 years ago # -
imho a bell is great on cyclepaths/shared use paths, utterly useless in traffic.
My choice is airzound, or on my bikes which don't have it, a good set of lungs! Car drivers expect a horn blast to signify imminent problems/collision/expense therefore they react to them. They don't need to see a car/bike to react, just hear a loud horn nearby.
I don't see the advantage of this over an airzound, but I do follow the reasoning :-)Posted 11 years ago # -
I'm gonna stick my neck out here and say I hate the idea of having a car equivalent horn on a bike. I hate the use or overuse of horns on cars let alone adding to the road mix of having them on bikes.
Whenever I'm driving and hear a loud horn, my attention is always taken away from the road getting over the slight shock, then trying to find the source of the horn, then trying ascertain whether it was me at fault.
When you hear a vehicle using the horn while you're on a bike nearby, it's 10 times worse. I think horns are more likely to cause accidents in this respect rather than avoid them.
What really grates me is people using the horn in anger after the event. Yes, you've maybe just been cut up, but what is hitting the horn going to do after it's happened other than put everyone in a 5 metre radius on edge.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Hear, and indeed, hear.
Have contemplated horns before, but figured if I had time to beep the horn I had time to hit the brakes instead and shout. Which is more personal, and gets the point across (slightly) more eloquently.
Using a horn is just really dropping down to the impersonal 'I'm going to register my disgust but I don't have to speak to you from inside my tin box' level.
IMHO.
Posted 11 years ago # -
I've ordered a hornit horn, but not to use for "shouting" at people, but instead to use as their marketing video suggests - to give car users and pedestrians who are about to do something that puts me in danger a warning that I am coming.
Posted 11 years ago # -
"What really grates me is people using the horn in anger after the event. Yes, you've maybe just been cut up, but what is hitting the horn going to do after it's happened other than put everyone in a 5 metre radius on edge."
I absolutely agree with this.
I also hate it when people beep their horns to say 'hello' to someone they've spotted.
Posted 11 years ago # -
I figured if I had time to beep the horn I had time to hit the brakes instead and shout.
This, in most circumstances. However, I think that anticipation and warning become significant factors once speed is high. If you can't brake or swerve in time...were you going too fast?
BentMikey once posted a video of him tooling along at about 30mph and (correctly) anticipating a car driver about to emerge from a side road oblivious to approaching traffic. There followed an immediate and sustained blast on his Air Zound that made the driver stop before Mikey became embedded in a door. A similar thing happened once to me on Colinton Road, when it took all the braking power of a low recumbent with hydraulic discs (and a dry road) to stop in time. I was too busy with brake levers to worry about a horn, since the driver had already pulled across my side of the road and stopped to wait for a gap.
Posted 11 years ago # -
There are good opportunities for a horn - for instance if you get stuck on the inside of a long vehicle whose driver seems to have forgotten to check the nearside before trying to turn left. Good luck with the brakes then :(
It's true that if you are braking you won't be able to sound the horn, but on the other hand a blast of the horn might prevent you having to brake at all.
Very tempted.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Voice, bell and horn all have their place, I used the airzound a wee while back when a gaggle of young lads made to wander across the road in front of me, the bell imo wouldn't have been heard and a shout lots in their boisterous laughing and joking, a brief toot caused them to stop smartly and I was pleased about getting a loud "sorry mister" from one of them.
Alternatively I've had a car forcing me into the gutter apparently either through ignorance of my speed or contempt for my health/life, a long blast caused them to reconsider and move over without having to escalate the conflict by slapping the car (which I easily could have reached).
My own belief is that both these usages fell within the highway code advice, so the horn worked, in other situations I have used my voice / my bell, on some bikes all I have is voice.It's not a "need to have", but to me, for riding in traffic it is very much a "nice to have".
Posted 11 years ago # -
I've ordered a hornit horn
The horn arrived today. Despite knowing it is 140 decibels, I was still surprised at how phenomenally loud it is. That said, if I was to somehow get my car into my kitchen and sound the horn, it would probably be the same rough volume. The advantage the hornit appears to have over a car horn is that the sound it makes sounds like a cross between an ambulance and a fire alarm. The exact kind of sound that makes people instantly stop and think "what the...". I shall see what it's like tomorrow, although I could easily go many days without using it as I shall only be using it sparingly to prevent vehicles who are about to do something stupid, erm, doing something stupid.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Hoiking this out of the archives after the 'Another SMIDSY' thread.
mkns - any feedback on the hornit after a month? Noticed again this morning that in the grim weather an increasing number of drivers seem to get complete tunnel vision when driving.
Posted 11 years ago # -
"I also hate it when people beep their horns to say 'hello' to someone they've spotted. "
Never go to Wick. I spent a night there while touring and all the locals seemed to have to do was drive round and round the town blowing the horn whenever they saw anyone they knew coming the other way (of course they were doing the same thing).
There weren't many visiting drivers in town that night.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Inspite of the replys in here regarding the nearside left turns, I still think the best defence against this sort of thing is to think ahead and not put yourself in the position.
On my commute home through traffic, I know and it is easy to see where the left turns where this sort of thing can happen. I'd never dream of putting myself beside a vehicle as we both passed a junction like that. I'd always like to be in front of them, therefore they can see me or behind them where I can monitor where they are headed regardless of indication.
Posted 11 years ago # -
I'd always like to be in front of them... or behind them
I'm sure this applies to, basically, everyone. I'd like it most if I could ride to work knowing that everyone else on the road is permanently in front of me, out of harm's way.
Alas, there is the awkward question of how the thousands of vehicles we interact with get from behind us to in front of us, some pulling in or turning, without being so polite as to obey our desires!
Posted 11 years ago # -
"I'd never dream of putting myself beside a vehicle as we both passed a junction like that. I'd always like to be in front of them"
Pretty much all of my near-left-hooks I've not dreamed of putting myself in that position either, I've always been in front, then had someone overtake at the last minute and immediately swing left.
Riding primary can mitigate it to some extent, but you still get some people trying it on, and you simply can't get away with primary past every single left side junction you come across.
Posted 11 years ago #
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