Sometimes there are things you just have to communicate to another driver, like “the light is green, please go!” At those times, the universal language is the honk of your horn.
We know the unofficial rules. You do a short, swift honk if it’s a simple “I don’t think you’re watching, but the light changed.” And you may go for a longer, more insistent, urgent honk if you’re aiming more for: “Now I know you’re not paying attention, and we’re all going to miss the light if you don’t go. Get a move on!”
But in either case, you are breaking the law.
You didn’t know that, did you? It’s not something most of us know. I sure didn’t.
A reader wrote me last week to tell me how she learned about it.
Dee Bonnie said she was waiting behind a car in the right turn lane at Oracle and Ina. The driver in front of her was talking on a cell phone, frozen in place, oblivious to the fact it was safe and legal to turn right on red (no oncoming traffic).
People are also reading…
So Bonnie honked. The driver turned. Bonnie turned. Bonnie got pulled over.
The highway patrol officer said “using a car horn for anything other than a traffic emergency is against the law,” Bonnie said.
Given this is the first time she’s ever heard of such a law, she wrote to check if it was true. Since I’d also never heard of this law, so I checked with the state Department of Public Safety, which runs highway patrol.
It’s true. Arizona state statutes (28-954) spell out “If reasonably necessary to ensure safe operation of a motor vehicle, the driver shall give an audible warning with the driver’s horn but shall not otherwise use the horn when on the highway.”
