u/Alone_Calendar5043

Car communication is absurdly primitive. A driver only has one acoustic tool: an ear-piercing 110-decibel blast that sounds like "I am going to ram you."

There is no gentle way to tell someone "Hey, the light turned green" or "Thanks for letting me merge." You try to do a gentle tap, and it still sounds aggressive. Just wondering why hasn't a two-tone horn (a low-decibel, friendly "chirp" vs. an emergency blast) become a global automotive standard?

You're waiting at a red light.

It turns green.

One second later: HOOOOONK.

The car in front has barely had time to move. Doesn't matter. Someone behind has already decided those 0.8 seconds are unacceptable.

And the funny part is, after seeing this enough times, you start doing it yourself.

Green light? Honk.

Maybe the person in front hasn't noticed.
Maybe they're checking for a pedestrian.
Maybe a bike just crossed in front of them.
Maybe traffic ahead hasn't moved.

Doesn't matter. Green means go, and apparently go means “honk first.” 😂

I've even noticed people honking when they can clearly see that the entire lane is blocked ahead.

Is it impatience?

Or have we just collectively trained ourselves to think that a green light comes with a horn?

What's the earliest you've ever been honked at after a signal turned green? 😅

Two diagonal pedestrian crossings installed in Vilnius

Imagine reaching a normal four-way intersection and, instead of crossing in an L-shape, you just walk straight across the middle diagonally.

That's what Vilnius tested in 2022.

What's interesting is that at one of the intersections, people were already doing it. The pedestrian signal was giving everyone a green light at the same time, so pedestrians naturally started taking the shortest route across the junction.

The city basically said: people are already doing this, so let's actually mark it and see what happens.

They tested diagonal crossings at two intersections for six months while monitoring pedestrian and vehicle traffic.

I really like the question this raises:

Should road design always try to force people to behave differently, or should we sometimes look at what people naturally do and design around it?

Would you want to see something like this at a busy intersection in your city?

I got curious about this and went looking through some research:

>A 2022 study examining pedestrian signal phases in Vilnius discusses the use of diagonal crossings and found that exclusive pedestrian phases can reduce pedestrian-vehicle conflicts, while also noting that diagonal crossings can increase vehicle delay.

>Vilnius wasn't inventing the idea from scratch either. The city noted that diagonal crossings had already been used for years in places including Japan, Sweden, the US and Canada

I realised something after a pretty painful lesson in the UAE.

I jumped a red light one night because I genuinely couldn't see the signal properly. It was a turn, the road was basically empty, and there was nobody around.

Then I did it again at the same place. And no, I wasn't deliberately ignoring the rules. I genuinely couldn't see the signal but that doesn't matter. The signal was there.

Total fine ended up being AED 8,000 (≈₹2.09 lakh) across the two incidents: AED 1,000 (≈₹26,140) fine + AED 3,000 (≈₹78,420) impound-release fee per violation. Each violation also carried 12 black points, and the vehicle could be impounded for 30 days.

And don't ask me how I managed to save my licence. 😅

I wasn't happy about paying it, obviously. But something did change after that.

I stopped asking myself:

“Is there anyone coming?”
“Is it safe?”
“It's the middle of the night anyway.”

The light was red. I stopped.

Coming back to India, I've noticed how differently people often approach signals. You see someone look at the road, decide that it's empty enough, and go. Sometimes a whole group follows.

It's almost as if the traffic light is one piece of information, while the driver's own judgement gets the final vote.

And I think that's more interesting than simply saying “Indians have no traffic sense.”

What happens when people repeatedly learn that they can decide for themselves when a rule applies?

Does enforcement actually change driving behaviour over time, even when nobody is watching?

Or do people just calculate the risk of getting caught every time they approach a signal?

Has a fine, camera, licence penalty, or even one really bad experience permanently changed the way you drive? Why do so many Indian traffic rules fall apart on the road?

I got curious about this and went looking through some research:

>A study on road-rule compliance found that people's perception of how certain they are to be caught can be an important part of deterrence, and concluded that continued enforcement matters for maintaining compliance.

>There's also research specifically on India showing that red-light violation behaviour varies with driving experience, driving frequency and other driver characteristics.

>And interestingly, research on traffic cameras in India found that functioning CCTV cameras were associated with increased enforcement activity by officers, showing how technology can change the enforcement environment itself.