Around the horn

by Thu Van

Composer Hoang Hiep famously celebrated the sounds of Ha Noi traffic in his song Nho ve Ha Noi. Hiep wrote the song in 1984, when Ha Noi was a much quieter place, and his main source of inspiration was the chimes of the capital city's trams, which are no longer in service.

These days traffic in the city produces a constant din of honking, and I wonder what Hiep would think about this cacophony on the streets. Many people, especially foreigners, find the constant honking to be extremely unpleasant. Viet Nam has developed a reputation as a city with chaotic and noisy traffic, and the situation is getting so bad that it may be scaring potential tourists away.

One foreign tourist who visited Viet Nam, Craig Heimburger, was so annoyed by the honking that he wrote about it on his website at travelogue.travelvice.com.

Craig bemoaned the inescapable dim of traffic. "Horns are repeatedly honked by every motorist, on average, every five to seven seconds. They honk when passing someone; they honk when turning; they honk when they are upset; they honk when people aren't moving fast enough; they honk to show off their custom-made horns; and they honk because everyone else is honking next to them."

Craig's comments received a lot of feedback from others who had also visited Viet Nam. Many agreed with him about the country's high levels of ‘noise pollution'.

Even though I found it frustrating while reading Craig's comments about my country, I had to confess that many times I have also been very annoyed by people honking like mad on the street.

One of the things that annoys me the most is when I stop at a red light and wait for it to turn green and people start honking even though the lights are still red. Is everyone in such a hurry that they're afraid I won't notice when the light changes colour?

So why do so many people like to honk? There are so many reasons for honking.

"People behind me just keep honking so I have to honk as well," says Nguyen Van Dai, a student at the Ha Noi University of Technology. "Gradually it becomes a habit."

Taxi driver Tran Thanh says most honkers are simply annoyed at other people's bad driving practices.

"Many motorists drive as if they owned the road, without any regard for fellow motorists," says Thanh.

"Sometimes I get really angry because even if I honk, they will not move aside and give way."

But while Vietnamese motorists have so many reasons to resort to their horns, motorists in other countries are more disciplined. During a recent trip to Thailand, I was on a shuttle bus travelling through Bangkok. We stopped at a pedestrian crossing and had to wait for quite some time for a long line of pedestrians to cross. To my surprise, despite the build up of vehicles at the pedestrian crossing, there wasn't a single honk to be heard.

My friend Phan Viet Thanh who recently returned to Viet Nam after living in England for two years says honking is very rare on streets there. People use their horns as a last resort.

Scary sounds

But back home it's a different story. It's becoming increasingly fashionable among young people to install loud horns that make exotic sounds, or even mimic the sound of a police or ambulance siren.

Do Trong Nho, head of the Transport Police Team in charge of noise violations, says that many motorbike riders install truck horns on their bikes.

Even though the Law on Road Traffic bans the use of horns that are too loud or not appropriate, Nho says it's extremely difficult to punish offenders.

"We lack resources to deal with this problem and some motorists can simply switch the sound of their horns back to a normal honk and deny that they have done anything wrong," he says.

Director of the Institute for Social Development Studies Khuat Thu Hong links Viet Nam's incessant honking to the history and psychology of the people.

Hong says Vietnamese people have a "me first" mentality. This psychology seems to be a leftover from difficult times in the past when there was rationing and people had to queue up for a long time to buy food, and naturally were afraid of losing their place while in line.

Hong says that parents and teachers need to play a greater role in educating their children about courtesy on the road. But then, do we have to wait until the next generation to seriously tackle our honking problem? —VNS