In an effort to calm Britain's rows, sorry roads, new laws are to be introduced to tone down car horns.
There is a long history of horns on cars, from the tootles of the first cars to the craze in the eighties for horns that played tunes. These days, horns are designed to give an angry parp, and this is where road rage begins.
According to the Highway Code, horns are there to alert other drivers to your presence for when they cannot see your car. Ordinarily this is because you are approaching a blind corner, or you are in their blind spot as they are about to change lanes on a multi-lane carriageway. Drivers the length and breadth of the country have extended this definition to alert other drivers of their presence when that driver is applying makeup at traffic lights, or mustn't have been able to see them as they cut them up and nearly caught an accident.
"It is this extension of people's use of the horn that causes the problems," said chief of Greater Manchester Police, Phil Inns. "The horn sounds angry, and it increases tension between drivers. This leads to road rage, stress and accidents."
The solution, according to Inns, is to change the noise that horns make from a parp to a whistle.
"Drivers don't get upset at whistles," said Inns. "Whistles are friendly. Even when they are wolf whistles from a building site."
To go alongside this change of noise, cars will be fitted with sensors that recognises when traffic lights change to green and when the car is about to change lanes into an already occupied lane. This will sound an alarm inside the car that only the occupants can hear. There is some debate at the moment as to whether to make this sound like a car horn, or a mother-in-law providing a scolding admonishment.
"These changes will make the roads a more harmonious and melodious place to be," said Inns. "And me make a packet because I've patented it."
