Cars are macho and in the hands of owners flaunting fat wallets they’re transformed into motor vehicles that are different. Oddity or originality, call it what you will, but the humdrum four-wheeler motor car as we ordinary folks know it is infused with healthy doses of pop culture that dramatically change its looks and style. Bizarre is better, pop is proper and it’s all a statement of attitude ? the kind, though, that Papa didn’t preach! A specific statement of haute style, distressing and annoying to many, is the fitting of train horns on these cars.

The train horn is conventionally used to signal the arrival of the train or its proximity to the station. In sports it is used as the cue to certain actions or proceedings. Today, the train horn has become a part of the customized vehicle. It is in a way an attempt on the part of the car owner to deviate from the conventionalities of the vehicle and add to it something new, like the train horn and be able to enjoy a louder, intimidating and more aggressive way of honking down the street.

What drives people ? literally ? to customize their cars at huge cost before buying them? Pardonably perhaps, a few very rich individuals might use this technique to flaunt their wealth. From amongst this super-rich lot, a sprinkling purportedly espouses aesthetic reasons. So they lower the chassis, incorporate swing doors and slanting headlights, tint the glasses and so on to make the car sleek, smart and swish to levels the manufacturer did not reach. Fair enough. But why train horns? That’s a whim monstrously undesirable to many with normal eardrums! What sort of self-gratification is this?

Crazily enough, it’s not just in cars that train horns have found unwarranted and generally unacceptable modern-day uses. Let’s quickly run through four of these. It might be used in a classroom to harass the teacher and have a few moments’ silence follow the hideous blast. When telemarketers call, it’s blown into the telephone receiver to give the unwanted caller an ear-blast that’s meant to deter future calls. It’s honked its way on to the reggae music platform too, adding its penny worth of noise to the reggae hullabaloo. Trucks use it on highways ? that’s at least logical.

There’s a curious legal problem associated with the use of train horns in cars. Using a train horn is a mode of the right of self-expression and can this right be denied to any citizen. Yes, perhaps it can if it’s harming or disturbing others. Imposing decibel level restrictions was tried out once but the police found it impossible to enforce. The owners install them precisely for their loudness! But the horns are sold with markings indicating loudness that’s different from what is achieved, so clear proof of violation is impossible! Environmental sensitivity and consideration are needed but today’s macho show-offs lack both.

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