I have been planning to do this for some time now. My feverish mind has already attempted it a few times, only to get distracted. I fail to keep notes and, as a result, lose valuable data. I have tried it from my balcony, which overlooks a bustling highway, and even on the way to a Sunday morning badminton game. But each time, I never carried it on long enough, nor did I record my observations. Now, however, I am ready—with all the data in hand.
I counted the number of honks I heard within a set time frame in this hellhole of a city.
You might say it’s an absolutely crazy thing to do. Well, I did it—more than once. And yes, it’s wild, but these are the very noises that drove me crazy in the first place.
Just the other day, I counted the honks on my way back from the office. It was around 3 in the afternoon, covering about 10 kilometres. Afternoons are when this city’s traffic is at its best behaviour—”thin,” with roughly a thousand vehicles per kilometre instead of the million you’ll find a few hours later. I can make the trip home in about 30 minutes, averaging 20 km/h. Not bad for Bangalore. Evenings will slow you down to about 8 km/h.
While it’s better than crawling like a centipede, it’s hardly the kind of speed that raises your hair. Slower traffic means you see more, hear more, and suffer longer. You notice every weaving vehicle, every broken side road, rogues behind taxi wheels, trapeze artists balancing on rickshaws. The buses loom large in every mirror.
Once you’ve surrendered to destiny and accepted the madness of living here, all of this becomes routine. I’ve grown accustomed to it over the years and can live with most of it.
But there’s one thing I still cannot tolerate: the honking.
It’s sheer madness out there. Every time I’ve counted, the numbers have been staggering—156 honks during a short 10-minute walk down a not-too-busy side road; 336 blasts on the drive home in just 15 minutes. And this is the afternoon, when most of the honking lunatics are still locked away in their offices.
We have every type of criminal when it comes to this offence. The petty thieves ride small electric scooters, the trigger-happy mercenaries roar past on bikes, the white-collar offenders sit comfortably in cars. Everyone is guilty; it’s a social malaise—infectious, untreatable, universal.
The horn was invented by American Miller Reese Hutchison in 1908. Franklyn Hallett Lovell Jr. bought the rights, coined the name klaxon from the ancient Greek klazō—”I shriek”—and General Motors was the first to fit them. Aptly named. It may be the most damaging invention ever made. It has gifted the entire human race tinnitus, produced generations of jumpy people with damaged hearing, and driven the sparrow and the spotted owl out of every city. Only the utterly useless stray dogs and the stubborn pigeons remain. Perhaps they don’t hear it at all.
Enough. Here is what I propose.
The Horn Proposal
Every automobile should be fitted with a device that counts the number of honks used in a day. The limit: five per vehicle. Ideally zero, but since we are a democratic country, we must give the public the right to mess it up.
Every honk beyond five would trigger a charge of ₹10, automatically debited from the driver’s account—like a highway toll tag. India has roughly 400 million registered automobiles. Even after generously allowing my fellow citizens their fair share of madness, the average vehicle honks about 50 times a day. That’s 45 honks above the limit, or ₹450 per vehicle per day—roughly ₹18,000 crore daily, and nearly ₹70 lakh crore annually.
To put it plainly: the Government of India collects about ₹50 lakh crore in GST and income tax each year. This would beat it. No income taxes. No budget speeches. No GST slabs, no inspectors, no audits. Nothing.
Meanwhile, the next generation would be calmer. Drivers would use brakes more than horns, and fewer lives would be lost. As a nation, we might even be a little less crazy.
Will there ever be total calm? Not easily. But it would be a welcome break.
So for now, honk away. The nation needs your revenue and the next generation will thank you when my idea finally gets implemented.
Hi I am Sudhir. I run three very different corners of the digital world. On India Wayfarer, I share document my travels and life as it unfolds around us. Stories of ancient engineering marvels, forgotten trails, and timeless architecture. You will also find me at Sportz Corner, where I write on football, cricket, and anything sport. And then there’s The Wrinkled Memo, where I pencil in my thoughts , sometimes satirical, from a three decade long life in the corporate jungle.
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Absolutely crazzzzy…a thought provoking article.. I like the idea of charging beyond the ration..
counting horns while traveling back home from office is a good idea to keep us engaged. 😅
Don’t do it…trust me it is maddening…Kishore Kumar is better
why not reward people who are on busy roads and don’t use horns for the day by 30-50 INR per day in their Fast Tag wallet ? Yes the route has to be specified
Absolutely, worsening each day due to unplanned development and poor road construction