India Tests Traffic Lights That Stay Red Longer The More Your Honk Your Horn

We’ve all been there and we’ve all experienced the frustration of being stuck behind a slow driver, a traffic jam, or drivers who are too distracted to move when the traffic light turns green. Many of us have also been guilty of honking on our horns whenever we find ourselves in these situations.

However, over in Mumbai, India, it seems that the police in the city are getting fed up with drivers honking their horns non-stop and have come up with a novel way of trying to rid drivers of that kind of behavior. How, you ask? By installing decibel meters onto traffic lights so that whenever the noise levels go above 85 decibels, the traffic lights will reset and continue to stay red.

Now this system isn’t in operation 24 hours a day, but rather it is conducted 15 minutes a day at locations that the police are calling “important”, which presumably are locations that tend to get jammed the most and where the majority of honking takes place. It is a rather clever idea and according to the Mumbai Police, there are plans to trial the system at more locations in the future.

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Horn not okay, please!
Find out how the @MumbaiPolice hit the mute button on #Mumbai’s reckless honkers. #HonkResponsibly pic.twitter.com/BAGL4iXiPH

— Mumbai Police (@MumbaiPolice) January 31, 2020

We’re not sure if there are plans to make this a permanent feature, but we imagine that after a few days, weeks, or months, drivers will soon get the idea and realize that pressing down on your horn while stuck in a jam probably won’t make it go faster.

Tyler Lee
Categories: General, Transportation
Tags: india