Stop Honking Bangalore

Having lived in Bangalore for over 34 years, I strongly felt the need to get something rolling to improve the situation with people and their horns in this city. I'm sure all of you would agree that we have a problem in this area. I'm going to refer to our city as Bangalore and for those die hard "Bengaluru" advocates, please accept my apologies.

Bangalore was known as the "pensioners' paradise", "summer retreat", "garden city" and what not, but today, we are faced with a pleathora of problems that we urgently need to address. I'm not saying that I'm trying to get Bangalore back to the good old quiet days that would justify any of it's previously held titles, but merely picking one item that has a big impact and seeing if we can do something about it.

Other cities like Mumbai have tried "anti-honking" campaigns that failed miserably and today the "honkers" continue their mindless honking. Bangalore, like Mumbai has a population of very educated people and coupled with the tag of being the "IT capital" of India, is home to the best of companies who again employ thousands of people who I'm hoping this message will reach out to.

Without further ado, let's get into the problem:

Bangalore has tens of thousands of motor vehicles that are on the roads today. Each and every one of these vehicles are fitted with at least 1 horn. Over the years, we have all seen the traffic multiply on our roads that were build to accommodate nothing more than the Wodeyar family's cars and their support staff. The floating population is also ever growing with Bangalore being well connected and being an important commercial hub. Bottom line - We have a lot of vehicles and a lot of people that "stress" the city today.

I'm sure all of you who are reading this own a vehicle of some sort and have used your horns.

Do you really think that you needed to use your horn as many times as you did on your way to office today?
Do you really think you care a damn about some fellow behind you who is honking away like his wife's in labor and he needs to get to a hospital?
Do you really think you feel powerful because you have a louder horn than the "putt-putt" Bajaj auto next to you at a signal.
As you see the lights turn orange or in the last 10 seconds in the signal timer, do you start honking to "wake" everyone up so you can move along behind everyone else?

COME ON! Think about it, it's all ABSOLUTELY meaningless and useless and all that it does is just adds a ton of noise to our already crying and polluted city. Just realize that everyone is headed somewhere and no one is parking in the middle of MG road to have a picnic. Just be patient and the vehicle in front of you will move, I promise. Just don't use your horn, please.

We need to STOP this, NOW. Like they say, it needs to begin at home first.

Let's start with a small experiment, the next time you take your vehicle out, DO NOT USE YOUR HORN AT ALL and see if it makes any difference in terms of your journey time, your ego, your mood or anything else at all. Comeback here and let us know what you thought happened. Needless to say, spread the word and tell people to stop honking and drive with their head.

Let's take baby steps here and I'm sure this will grow into a sensible movement and bring back the peace to Bangalore.

Take it away Bangalore.