Right of Way

It's the antique car show in Frostburg this weekend, and a lot of fancy cars are driving by with people having fun in them. And I just heard a horn beep.

In India, many different kinds of horns punctuate every trip to anywhere. On the open road, between cities, the most common are lorry horns, loud shrill blasts that rival the roaring of the engines. They tell villagers they're approaching, warn animals and small children off the road. Lorries also use their horns at curves in the road, of which there are many in the mountains, to tell other drivers to find a spot to get out of the way. At night, you're supposed to dip your lights, but more likely you'll get a horn blared instead. The lorries get the right of way over everyone else, and their horns say so.

In the old days, the lorries all had air horns, with the rubber air bulb within easy reach of the driver's hand so he could give a quick honk-a whenever he needed to. Nowadays, they're mostly electric.

The long distance busses blast their horns in the same way, but many busses have unique musical sequences, very loud. If you're riding the bus you need to get to know your bus horn, because when the driver finishes his lunch you need to be back in your seat when he blows the horn, or have a very good advocate, so you won't be waiting for the next bus. If a bus meets a lorry at a curve, the bus has to move out of the way.

As you get closer to the city, of course the volume increases, by number and by frequency. Now you can hear, in order of right of way: large government and VIP vehicles whose sophistocated single-tone horns let foot traffic know to pay attention; city busses don't have fancy horns as often, but drivers are never afraid to hold the note for as long as it takes to get the right passengers for the trip; taxis use smart, multiple beeps to communicate the importance of their trip; minibusses used for mass transit get a slightly lower rank and often have a caller, the driver's apprentice, who adds his voice to the long drawn-out horn tone to announce routes and departures; then come any number of private cars -- each driver develops his own rhythm, putt-putts and motorcycles whose high squeaky horns give them away, cycle rickshaws and bicycles who use the same metalic ringer to establish their spot on the road. Horse drawn tongas, ox- and camel- carts and coolie-drawn cargo carts get last place, using the drivers' sticks to play the spokes on the wheels as they roll.

It all works amazingly well, if you follow the system.