Horny

Readily accessible personal transportation has been a need of mankind since the earliest of days, when he started using animals as a method of personal as well as load-bearing transit.

In the realm of warfare, horses as well as elephants were used as a battle accessory.

Naturally, the horse became the dominant means of transport partly because of its reliability, ease of training, and sometimes strong personal bonding. It was either ridden with a saddle, or else used to pull cabs and carts - also used as a source of power for activities such as ploughing.

Then came the advent of the horseless carriage.

The early history of the automobile can be divided into eras, based on the prevailing fuels of propulsion. Later periods were defined by trends in exterior styling, size, and utility preferences.

In 1769 the first steam-powered automobile capable of human transportation was followed in 1808 by an internal combustion engine that was fueled by hydrogen.

Around sixty years later, came the first gasoline powered combustion engine, leading to more sophisticated combustion-engine cars, which over a 10-to-15-year span, influenced later cars.

In 1913, the Ford Model T, created by the Ford Motor Company, became the first automobile to be mass-produced on a moving assembly line. By 1927, Ford had produced over 15,000,000 Model T automobiles.

Although you may not have begun learning to drive on one of these Ford icons, you possibly began driving at a time when calmness and care prevailed on the highway and in circumstances where the idea was to integrate with traffic movement, not to control it.

In the 1940s, it was a mark of that period’s social milieu that one New South Wales driver guidance manual showed drawings of only male drivers, who were depicted wearing hats, gloves, and attentive expressions. I recall that one particular book I used as a reference during my childhood when I was gaining an interest in learning to drive, was titled “Driving and The Nicety of Control”.

In this obviously genteel publication, its advice regarding road rules pointed out that the horn was a warning device, to be used only for alerting other drivers of hazards.

Believe it or not, that ruling still applies today, but you wouldn’t guess it if you were a learner driver trying to cope with the complexities of operating in modern dense traffic conditions. Here the horn is used not just as an alerting signal but also as a method of speech, ranging from a casual reminder “I’ve arrived outside and am waiting”, to the angry enjoinder” yougot a bloody Braille licence?”, or in more amenable conditions a farewelling “bye bye”

The earlier tone of the horn has changed from its sound of yester-year, when initially the raucous klaxon advised all with its strident “aah-ooo-gah”, through to later times with cars later morphing to a “baarp”, yeerp, or blurk”, all in a range of different tones.

But now, just like their chassis styles and general appearance, modern cars all seem to have the same identical high-toned horn’s call of “beep”.

These alto squeaks from affronted machines, although not particularly quiet, are nevertheless difficult to assign to any particular vehicle in the surrounding mob, meaning it could be anyone warning of anything.

Nowadays the time has passed when you could generally identify a specific car by associating its horn sound with its appearance. Not even size comes into play, with smaller cars having little, quieter horns, and large cars bigger noisier ones. It is hard to put the aural blame onto any easily identifiable source.

To a certain extent you still can – if it’s a truck. With a heavy, more rugged nature it’s not hard to associate the bellowing low-pitched blaaah” air horn with the alerting yell of that monstrous B-double behind you wanting you to get out of his lane.

Today’s vehicles are exemplars of mass production conformity, having lost much of their design individuality yet with a plethora of ancillary cosmetic trimmings and selling proposition revolving around price and fuel consumption.

There is much emphasis on styling, as well as on the intended purpose of that car, but seemingly gone are the days when the overall appearance and build of an automobile assigned to it some kind of character which made it attractive to the lifestyle preference of a potential purchaser.

But otherwise, in a similar manner to their body appearances, today’s cars all sound the same as these little creatures scuttle past you after a pleading “meep”, or if there is an element of road rage being released on an offender, a ”meep-meep-meep”.

I enjoy watching the reaction of other drivers on those occasions when I use my motor scooter instead of my small van, and blow the horn as a legit warning call. The ensuing high-pitched “yeep yeep” makes them wonder whether they should take seriously those two small wheels. But then, they’d probably be astounded if I had a powerful horn like a pounding semi-trailer. 

I guess it’s horses for courses, except that in the case of today’s cars, they all wear the same colours, run down the track in the same lane, but neigh at the same pitch.

Not really all that horny.