I am using my horn when it is necessary - I believe, that it is better to be called honking idiot, than to have a smashed car..

Here the German, Austrian and Swiss law about horns:
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hupe

Every car with more than 50 ccm must have one

Only to use for
- warning others for a danger
- outside a village/town to show, that you want to pass

It forbidden and you can be fined, if you use it for:
-wake up a sleeping driver in front of a traffic light
- to indicate annother ones for a misbehaviour
- to chase away bad ghosts at a wedding in the convoi
- greeting friends
- making a horn-concert after your favourite team has won

P.S. The last use of a horn was made popular in Germany by Italian and Turkish immigrants. At the last football-cups in 2006 and 2008 it was used by the fans of all teams.

What's with all these horn laws anyway? I mean what's the purpose? I thought NYC was quite strange for having that but now everyone's saying that their country has them too. In most of the US (with the exception of NYC and maybe a few other large cities I don't know about) you can honk and honk as much as you want and it's perfectly fine and legal.

We have that in Spain as well now that you mention it, we can use the horn in those cases too.

You can do it: that's what Ingo said that he did



Rough summary from our "code de la route" : in Belgium they must be as short as possible and can be used only to warn others from a danger or prevent accident (i.e. not to be used to call a friend, or in a traffic jam). Outside the city they can also be used to notify someone that you will pass him (what is funny is that for this purpose it is not much used )
In the night it must be replaced by the switch on/off of the "big headlights".

Ingo, I completely agree with your thoughts of Wisconsin. It seems the only purpose for the entire state is to serve as a bridge to Chicago. I drove to Chippewa Falls last week and many non-Interstate roads are built up to freeway specifications, so drivers were moving at similar speeds.

Maximum idling time in Sweden is one minute.

Why not on foot? you're not meant to walk along the road through the cars



Funny but sadly true...



Now that you mention that, you're not supposed to honk inside of a city in Spain, it's forbbiden, but as you very well say peopl still do it even if not "legal"

P.S. At these 13 000 km, I made within 20 days in the US, I'd only seen one time a driver, who behaves like a German: driving very close to the car in front of him, and using flash-lights and the left turn signal to squeeze him from the left lane. It was on one highway around L.A.

@Max: I'd heard in the 90ies, that in New York you cannot accelerate so fast at a green traffic light, that a real N.Y.taxi-driver will NOT honking.

Indeed, when I'd been in Manhattan (Dec 2003 and Feb 2008), there weren't many horns to hear.
But still annother typical Manhattan-sound (typical in European eyes): the sirens of police and emergency-cars in the night.



A propos the way of riving: when I made my "autodriveaway"-tour in July 1993 across the USA, I've recognized, that the driver's behaviours were really different between the States.

So in Kansas and Oklahoma all drivers are driving not fast. I'd put the cruise-control at 58 mls, when there was a 55 mls-limit and i've passed them all.
Entering Texas, directly on the border-line all drivers had accelerated and were going faster. In California the way of driving was more "dynamic", too, but in Nevada (where I'd heard before, that the people there were driving quite fast), it wasn't that extreme. The state, where all drivers were going very fast ("very fast" in US-eyes, not in German eyes) was Wisconsin.
There I had a little race with around 90 miles (140 km/h) per hour. "Little" means 200 km long on the Interstate 94. I drove a 1986 Pontiac Sunbird, the other driver a same-aged Chevrolet Cavalier.

I had to quit the race, because suddenly the three lamps "check engine", "oil" and "generator" were flashing. I was really pissed - just 200 km with a bit speed and the engine gets exhausted.
For me the US-quality had caused it. Shortly before my US-trip I had made a 600 km-trip with my 1973 K 70 - always full throttle on the Autobahn. Sure, the fuel consumption was high - but the engine was purring like a happy cat.