We Need Car Horns Like THIS

There really should be a different car horn for different situations. But cars usually come with just the one – LOUD AND ANGRY. Youtuber and former NASA Engineer, Mark Rober, thought that that was too limiting and since he has the smarts for it, he gave his car horn an “increased vocabulary”.

On most occasions, we want to use the horn to signal “Hey! I’m here!” and not “Watch out! Are you effing blind?!” The problem is that car horns usually sound like latter, and we unintentionally send bad vibes out into the world.

Sometimes at the traffic light, the driver in the car in front of us is unaware that the light has turned green (nowadays, it’s probably because she/he is checking her/his phone). We’re not really angry; we just want to give a courtesy honk. We might try to lightly thump the car horn but we don’t always succeed, though, because we either still sound mad or we make no sound at all.

In order to not come off sounding like a jerk yet stay safe at the same time, Rober incorporated three new buttons into the dashboard of his Jetta. One of it is a courtesy horn which emits two friendly sounding toots. Another button is for when he wants to be “super chill” and get the attention of a pedestrian; the sound it emits doesn’t even sound like a horn to us but more like R2 D2 (from Star Wars) saying “Hello”.

Sometimes, though, you DO want to be nasty. That's when the third button, aptly red, is used. It makes an air horn sound loud enough to scare the bejesus out of someone, particularly other annoying road users; you know, pedestrians who take their time crossing the road because they are using the phone or motorbikes that swerve into your lane without signalling or, for Rober, those pesky fidget-spinner-playing kids.

We don't all know how to add custom car horns to our cars, but with Rober's “Nicest Car Horn Ever – DIY” video already racking up 4.9 million views and counting, we hope that car manufacturers are taking notice.