The Car Horn and the Gentle Art of Shaming

I hate honking my car horn. Yes, of course there are appropriate times to use it.

Examples:
... beep... “The light is green.”
... beep... “Hey, I’m here.”
... BEEEEEEPPP... “Watch out behind you. There’s a werewolf!”

But for all of it, most people honk their horns as the verbal equivalent to

”FUCK YOU, YOU PIECE OF SHIT FUCKING FUCK.” —

— which suffice to say is a version of

“I’m so POWERLESS to affect real change to this situation, I’m goin to throw off all responsibility to human decency and throw a tantrum.”

These were the only two ways I saw honking…

Until one day, I was driving in morning rush hour, in the center lane, stuck behind some jerk who decided she was going to make a left turn despite being in the wrong lane. And traffic behind me was quickly stacking up.

I wasn’t angry. I just planned to wait the minute for her to get her way, when I realized something:

It is my responsibility as a good driver to honk.

I need to shame her.

As we all know, shame is the social threat of ostracization. It’s the tool we use to say, “Yo, if you continue behaving this way, you will cease to have access to the benefits of the collective.”

She was behaving poorly, and it was my responsibility to shame her... otherwise she might think this behavior was acceptable. She would continue to drive like an asshole in the future and cause more traffic over the course of her life. The seconds she stole from her fellow drivers would snowball into minutes... into hours... then days... then years.

Just so she could turn LEFT?! Not on my watch.

So I leaned into the horn, until she finally straighten out and drove correctly.

I’m not saying I’m a hero or anything but sometimes it’s important that you call out jerkish behavior… even if it makes you look like one.