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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)

#361

Post by sgtnoodle »

genewitch wrote: post #254
sjg007 wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Our 2020 GMC Acadia and the equivalent Ford Explorer both automatically turn high beams on and off depending on nearby traffic. It's presumably based on a forward looking camera in front of the rear view mirror.

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

#362

Post by known »

mindcrime wrote: post #209
JulianMorrison wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIRC English - Indian English, not British or American - is the second language of the most people in India. Otherwise, they have so many local languages they would be mutually incomprehensible. But everyone learns English, and so they can talk and do business.

I had two Indian co-workers once, and we got into talking about languages. I was a bit surprised at the time to find out that the only language they shared in common was English. One spoke English, Tamil, and a regional dialect, and the other spoke English, Hindi, and a (different) regional dialect. I later came to find that this is actually quite common in India. And I understand English is still widely taught there…

There is a "Temple" for English in India https://www.bbc.com/news/world-south-asia-12355740

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

#363

Post by ramraj07 »

junoper wrote: post #213
ramraj07 wrote: post #27

A reminder that pretty much no lorry driver in india knows English. Vehicles here have inane phrases like this and it’s for the most part almost protocol to paint them when you get a vehicle of that class. The guy who paints Lorry backs with the company name probably asks “you want the horn ok please phrase right” and the drivers probably like yeah whatever. Not like the drivers here expect courtesy from anyone aroun…

> A reminder that pretty much no lorry driver in india knows English. It would be rare to find a lorry driver who can converse in English but most of them would know the words "Horn, OK, Please". Thye aren't obscure words and phone/smartphone is widespread in India with mostly latin script interface. So, while I agree that it has become kind of a protocol/decoration, drivers while knowing the meaning, wouldn't care m…

My grandfather used to work in a goods shed so I knew my fair share of lorry drivers in the 90s. Horn ok please predates that era even. They knew not an sorts of English back then.

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

#364

Post by Arnavion »

bettysdiagnose wrote: post #334
orblivion wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And IIRC Hindi is supposed to do that but it doesn't always work out in the south (local nationalism among other things?).

Well Hindi is just as alien linguistically to the south as English is. English and Hindi have more in common with each other. I guess English is a neutral second langauge.

It's not even a North vs South thing. The so-called Hindi belt is a tiny part of North India, and even then plenty of people that live in it don't speak it.

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

#365

Post by niij »

matsemann wrote: post #240
hr0m wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can confirm all of it for Germany as well (except the Italian serpentine road synchronization hack). I flash lights for oncoming traffics because of danger or police checks. I flash warning lights (or raise right hand) for thank you. Others do as well (especially buses, when you let them out of the bus stop, since in Germany they don't have the right of passage leaving a bus stop) I learned that truck drivers (and…

> I flash lights for oncoming traffics because of danger or /police checks/. Why? Do you want dangerous drivers on the roads?

Flashing lights is meant to communicate to others they need to slow down or otherwise obey the traffic laws. How does that have a negative effect on safety?

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

#366

Post by raffraffraff »

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…

Flashing the warning lights also means "thanks" in Ireland.

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

#367

Post by rahoulb »

slingnow wrote: post #327
rahoulb wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have a fourth one - you're a woman or a non-white person and I'm going to lean out of the window and yell obscenities at you.

No, we don't.

Well as a brown person I can tell you it happens to me about once every three months. My wife and eldest daughter report the same. And my non-white and female friends agree that it is a common occurrence.

Anecdotal, I know. But still what my experience shows.

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

#368

Post by climb_stealth »

CraigJPerry wrote: post #215
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…

>> In the mountains of Italy, drivers give a short honk before entering a turn on a serpentine road At night i was on an airport transfer bus heading down the Amalfi coast and the driver was flashing his headlights before barrelling into a hairpin turn giving no room for oncoming traffic. I stopped stamping on the imaginary brake pedal quite so hard when i realised this signal must mean I’m coming through which is th…

I learned both and it depends on the context. If you can see the other car and they can see you, flashing the lights means giving them right of way or showing them that they can go. If you are coming towards a blind corner it is just a way of bringing attention to you coming. I also do this when cars with high beams come over a crest. Flash your own high beams a few times and they can turn off their lights before coming over the crest blinding you.

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

#369

Post by datameta »

cjaybo wrote: post #255
datameta wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Ah, ok. Yeah, that's an important distinction. I've actually not come across that as of yet.

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

#370

Post by wcunning »

kube-system wrote: post #308
nawgz wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My car has more controls for the lights alone than my first vehicle had for everything. Literally. As someone driving a 2021 Subaru who grew up in a 99 Integra and an 01 Civic. I don't see this at all? The controls are extremely familiar for the lighting, except my new car has a no-friction option: I turn on the "Auto" setting and it automatically puts on DRLs or full lights for me given the lighting conditions. It…

I'm not sure what the solution is, or whether it is even a design problem at all, rather than a societal/political/licensing problem. My older vehicles had 3 controls for exterior lighting: parking lights, headlights, high beam. They were simple on-offs with feedback that indicated their current state. If people couldn't see your car, you couldn't see your gauges. My 2021 Honda has SEVEN pages in the owners manual de…

I'm late to the party so no one will read this comment, but it's important for posterity. I own an F150 for moving things literally too heavy to move in even a well spec'd SUV. As a result, I cared a lot about things like load tie down points and weight ratings. In many ways, I learned an awful lot about that from the owner's manual, though in many other ways, I wish that they had better information about load placement in the bed and weight ratings of the bed liner in small areas, etc. You really can learn an awful lot that people should know about the limits of their vehicle from reading the manual.

On the other hand, we have legally required boilerplate sections like "how to decode tire ratings" that take up 20 pages, so there's definitely useless bloat.

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