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Downtown Manhattan residents have heard enough from honking cabs, and one Community Board is asking the Taxi & Limousine Commission to do something about the racket. Community Board 3, which represents the area of Manhattan containing the East Village, Lower East Side, and Chinatown, voted this week to formally request that the T&LC require devices to be installed in cabs that will visually identify them as horn abusers.
Currently, police have to audibly witness a cab honking his horn in order to enforce noise pollution rules. A "tattletale" light will serve as a sort of Scarlet H, revealing cab drivers who have been leaning on their horns. There are other creative ideas to curb cab cacophony around town, as mentioned in the New York Post:
- Require horns to blare as loudly inside of cabs as outside when honked.
- Linking cabs' meters to the horn. Every honk knocks $1 off the fare.
- An electroshock device in the drivers seat that would administer a jolt every time a cabbie beeped.
Image from HONK!, by edEx at flickr
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Right, because only taxi drivers honk their horns, right?
The $1 off the fare with each horn is actually a great idea. We know how petty some of the drivers are after The Great Credit Card War of '07.
I hate the stoonad taxi drivers. Don't speak proper English most of em and they don't know the city from nothing.
I have this idea for an earned honk system: it'd be a built-in reward system for good driving, with one honk earned for every x days of behaving. Will probably require a lot of technology though.
Until this is figured out, let's just throw whatever's handy at the culprits.
When searching for other info on the anti-honk movement I came across a pretty good suggestion. Have cabs' horns disabled when the car isn't moving. There is no purpose for a horn to be sounded while the driver is sitting in traffic. It's an emergency warning, not an encouragement or to express frustration.
let's also put shock collars on bar patrons so when they go out in the street to enjoy a smoke, the remember to keep it down.
Seriously, people who live in the city complaining about this stuff should move to the country, or a quieter neighborhood. It's like they move in and then say, gee, how come it's so noisy and crowded here? Everyone should now change to accomodate ME.
How about we make the fine $5000. That should put an end to it.
I doubt even 50% of car horn noise comes from cabs. There are plenty of other assholes on the rads.
uh, "roads"
How about a device which cuts the decibel output of car horns and emergency vehicle sirens by half after 7:30-8:00 PM? Its ridiculous how far and disturbing a siren will carry at 1 AM in the morning.
I totally agree with you eyekantspel.
Living in Manhattan one should expect to hear all kinds of noise 24/7. If you want peaceful and quiet move to the suburbs/country or a residential street in Queens or Brooklyn.
My first car -- an old VW -- used pressure from the spare tire to make the window washer fluid squirt. Too much window cleaning and the spare went flat.
Which gives me an idea. . .
How about a similar setup for horns? There should only be enough "air" in the horn for one or two emergency blasts. After that, the driver must take the car in to get refilled. Perhaps from a licensed horn air supply garage.
Idiots who honk their car horns incessantly for no reason are a problem anywhere with traffic, not just the big city. I actually came up with Solution No. 1 on my own a few weeks ago after the crane incident, which resulted in non-stop honking 24 hours a day on 2nd Avenue for most of the week after. If I have to hear their horns at full blast, why shouldn't the person honking the horn?
Stupid question: how come no one has ever challenged the (obviously) selective placement of "no honking or you will pay a fine" signs in certain neighborhoods? If 5th Av residential areas are good enough, so is the LES. If you choose to live in Manhattan, you expect a degree of noise but no one should be subjected to honking 24 hrs.
You can hear a pin drop at night in my residential neighborhood, and it's pretty quiet during the day as well.
Come to think of it people must have tried over the years, but I've never seen this in the news.
while you're at it, brainstorm on those idiots who play their crap music loud too from their cheap cars
I must be living here too long. I don't even notice cabs honking. I'll be more observant for them now.
Oh, forget Enron
the problem around here is
all the damn honking
Smoking cigarettes
blasting Hot97
futilely honking
Terrorism is
a Lincoln Continental
leaning on the horn
honku.org
forgotten-ny.com
"Linking cabs' meters to the horn. Every honk knocks $1 off the fare."
I like it. And, last I checke,d cabbies weren't supposed to be honking their horns in the first place. From the TLC Passenger Bill of Rights:
"A noise free trip: no horn honking or radio"
Name the last time I was in a cab where they followed this, or half of the rules, in the Bill of Rights.
Even though you live in a city, there are still limits. It doesn't mean anyone can go around making all the noise, dirt, smell and trouble they want. Keeping it civil is something we all can do. Other cities do a better job of it, even though NYC is bigger, everyone can still try to act human.
Everytime the driver honks a voice recording inside yells "go back to your country!". It's fun and offensive, it's offunsive!
There is a solution - the AHAS SYSTEM - Automobile Horn Audit System (patent Pending)- measures and records honks, keeps a record and is down loadable to a data base.
Excess honks are penalized with a fine.
More info - www.HornPollution.com