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The origins of ‘horn ok please,’ India’s most ubiquitous phrase (2016)

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Re: The origins of ‘horn ok please,’ India’s most ubiquitous phrase (2016)

#251

Post by matt-attack »

icambron wrote: post #244
calahad wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flashing the high-beams to warn of police is a thing in the US also, although you can get ticketed for it. (Apparently this has been successfully challenged in court as free speech though lol https://www.myimprov.com/flashing-headlights-in-florida-prot... )

I remember reading through some of the judicial rulings on this. IIRC, the logic is that not only is it speech, but the government case for regulating this kind of speech is unusually poor: the function of flashing the lights is to suggest that you obey the traffic laws. That can't reasonably be in the government's interest to prevent.

Now that is an interesting point I never considered. That the message being conveyed is simply "Obey the law".

Not that the contents of the message should be germane (in my opinion) when considering whether a specific act of speech should be considered legal or not.

Re: The origins of ‘horn ok please,’ India’s most ubiquitous phrase (2016)

#252

Post by YeahThisIsMe »

hengheng wrote: post #152
fho wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's somewhat common among truck drivers in Germany to flash the turn signals left-right-left-right to say "thank you" after overtaking (another truck).

Is that saying thanks? I thought they were just fumbling with the blinker control.

It's saying thanks as a response to the slower truck flashing its high beams to let the faster truck know it's now safe to move back over to the slower lane.

Re: The origins of ‘horn ok please,’ India’s most ubiquitous phrase (2016)

#253

Post by DwnVoteHoneyPot »

kelvin0 wrote: post #173

No where in the article do they even try to ask the people who own or paint these words on the vehicles? Speculation throughout and not a shred of input from any of the people actually involved (Drivers, Lettering painters, police..). Conclusion: none! We don't know and didn't ask either. Really weird article.

The author should "do the needful" as my Indian colleagues would say.

Re: The origins of ‘horn ok please,’ India’s most ubiquitous phrase (2016)

#254

Post by genewitch »

sjg007 wrote: post #219
calahad wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flashing the high-beams to warn of police is a thing in the US also, although you can get ticketed for it. (Apparently this has been successfully challenged in court as free speech though lol https://www.myimprov.com/flashing-headlights-in-florida-prot... )

Most people these days drive with their LED high beams on all the time.

I don't understand how a car with detectors that dim mirrors can't also turn your high beams off when they detect another car in front of you.

Easily 5/8ths or more of every vehicle I pass at night has their high beams on, and in areas without fog lines it gets old in a hurry - and dangerous.

Re: The origins of ‘horn ok please,’ India’s most ubiquitous phrase (2016)

#255

Post by cjaybo »

datameta wrote: post #191
jrochkind1 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the USA, I at some point picked up flashing headlights as "thanks", I don't know how common it is, I don't see it that often (anymore?), but USA drivers may be unlikely to give thanks on the road. :| (Flashing headlights is also "i see you trying to merge in front of me and i'll give you space." Which I also occasionally do but don't see that often).

The only way I've seen flashing high-beams used is on the highway to signal from behind "you're going too slow for my liking" or from a distance away "watch out I'm serpentining through traffic 15-20mph faster than the next fastest car"

I think GP is talking about flashing the headlights by turning them off and back on quickly, rather than flashing the high-beams. This is what I've usually seen in the US when drivers want to say "thank you" or "you can merge in front of me" on the highway.

Re: The origins of ‘horn ok please,’ India’s most ubiquitous phrase (2016)

#256

Post by tdeck »

tectonicfury wrote: post #205

My father told me the reason some years ago. As a rough sketch, it was because decades ago many highways used to be 'single lane', so if you had a truck in front of you, you needed to overtake it as you wouldn't want to be stuck tailing it the entire length of the road. He said that above the "OK" there used to be a bulb. So if someone wanted to overtake the truck, they were required to sound their vehicle's horn to…

I love this explanation, and went looking for some photos of the rear of trucks in 1940s India. But I couldn't find any good ones. Is anyone able to find evidence of whether such a signal light existed?

Re: The origins of ‘horn ok please,’ India’s most ubiquitous phrase (2016)

#257

Post by sdeframond »

rozab wrote: post #123
sdfjkl wrote: post #85

Different cultures have different unwritten behaviours on roads. In the mountains of Italy, drivers give a short honk before entering a turn on a serpentine road, which usually can't be seen around. If there is no responding honk, they will take the full width of the road (making the very tight turn easier and faster). Tourist drivers have to pick up on this :) In much of Europe oncoming cars flash their lights to wa…

I've seen people flashing their hazards to say thank you in London, but never in Scotland. I suppose non-verbal, everyday communication like this can still remain very localised since the usual vectors for cultural transmission (social media, television, film, etc.) don't include such mundane things.

Trucks travel far though. I wouldn't be surprised that they would be a significant vector of road etiquette.

Re: The origins of ‘horn ok please,’ India’s most ubiquitous phrase (2016)

#258

Post by icambron »

matt-attack wrote: post #251
icambron wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember reading through some of the judicial rulings on this. IIRC, the logic is that not only is it speech, but the government case for regulating this kind of speech is unusually poor: the function of flashing the lights is to suggest that you obey the traffic laws. That can't reasonably be in the government's interest to prevent.

Now that is an interesting point I never considered. That the message being conveyed is simply "Obey the law". Not that the contents of the message should be germane (in my opinion) when considering whether a specific act of speech should be considered legal or not.

IANAL, but my understanding is that there are different levels of "scrutiny" that can be applied to a statute when analyzing its First Amendment compatibility, and which one is appropriate depends on several factors. Typically a judicial opinion walks through the logic of which one it applies before applying it. And the level of scrutiny determines how strongly the law is constrained.

Under the strictest scrutiny--applied when the law is restricting the expression of a viewpoint or opinion--it doesn't matter why the law is there; free speech wins. Under lower scrutiny, as seems applicable here, the government must show it has a "rational basis". That's what allows them to, say, require you to communicate your intention to turn via a turn signal. I believe that rational basis test is what's failing here.

Re: The origins of ‘horn ok please,’ India’s most ubiquitous phrase (2016)

#259

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

It seems fairly clear to me how it could come about.

Someone writes a sign "Honking the horn at me is OK, please warn me as I don't have mirrors", which is clearly too wordy. And so it evolves over time, is shortened, newspaper headline style, via e.g. "horn is OK, please warn" to the final product.

"doesn’t seem to make grammatical sense" well yes, but neither do many headlines e.g. "Diana Dead" that drop implied words such as "is" for similar reasons.

Re: The origins of ‘horn ok please,’ India’s most ubiquitous phrase (2016)

#260

Post by esaym »

sdfjkl wrote: post #85

Different cultures have different unwritten behaviours on roads. In the mountains of Italy, drivers give a short honk before entering a turn on a serpentine road, which usually can't be seen around. If there is no responding honk, they will take the full width of the road (making the very tight turn easier and faster). Tourist drivers have to pick up on this :) In much of Europe oncoming cars flash their lights to wa…

A person know that spent time in Japan (I think, back in the 70's) mentioned while stopped at a traffic light, everyone would turn off their headlights.
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