Now Reading: Freedom to Honk
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Freedom to Honk
Q: Is it true that, besides warning others of danger, using your horn for free speech is the only other legal use of the horn?
A: Using your horn as an expression of speech is a real thing, but not everything you say with your horn is legal. Courts across the country have weighed in on this, and it’s not a simple answer, so I’d say the safest response to your question is, “Maybe?”
But first, did you know that you could be required by law to use your horn? Washington’s law states, “The driver of a motor vehicle shall when reasonably necessary to insure safe operation give audible warning with his or her horn but shall not otherwise use such horn when upon a highway.” In the law, “shall” is for mandatory actions. If you find yourself in a situation where a honk is the best way to warn someone of a hazard, honk that horn.
I say that for the overly-polite folks. For the rest of us, the second part of that sentence reminds us that honking is prohibited for any other purpose when you’re on the highway. When you’re not on a public road this law doesn’t apply, but a local noise ordinance might.
Where does free speech come in? I’m no expert on the US constitution, but the first amendment is pretty important. I mean, they put it first. Courts have said that some non-emergency honking is protected speech, but not all of it.
For example, you can’t blare your horn continuously as you drive by an RV park because it blocks your view of the river. The Montana Supreme Court said being obnoxious because you don’t like something is not protected speech (my paraphrase of a long legal document).
How about honking your horn for ten minutes straight at six am in a neighborhood because your HOA sent you a letter about your chickens? The Washington Supreme Court ruled in favor of the honker, but not because that was protected speech. It was because the local noise law she was arrested under was overly broad, conceivably making some kinds of protected speech illegal. If the chicken honker had been cited for violating the state’s horn law instead of a local noise law, maybe the court would have reached a different outcome.
Even if you’re honking as part of a political act, it might not be protected. A California woman who honked as she drove past a protest was cited, and courts found that the state’s interest in traffic safety took precedent over the honker’s communication, in part saying if honking is for more than warnings, horns lose their effectiveness. She took her case all the way to the US Supreme Court, where they declined to hear it.
Next time you drive past a demonstrator with a sign that says, “Honk if you love freedom!” what should you do? Remain silent and imply that you’re in favor of dictatorship? Honk and hope it’s protected speech? I encountered that situation last week while driving in heavy traffic and chose, instead of honking, to offer a thumbs-up gesture. We all love freedom, but I didn’t want to alarm someone, have them slam on their brakes, and cause an even bigger traffic jam (or crash).
After reading multiple cases, I can’t find a bright line that separates honking as protected speech from honking that violates the law. Practically though, I’m inclined to agree that if we all start expressing our views with our horns, like the boy who cried wolf, they’ll become less effective when we really need them.
Merrill Gehman
What about a truck driver, when a person along the street makes the hand signal to blow your airborne. That decision also depends on whether you startle someone or not.
DOUG DAHL
There’s no exception in the law that permits it, so it’s clearly not legal. But when I was a kid I loved it when a truck driver would respond to that signal with a horn blast. If you’re going to honk illegally (and let’s face it, sometimes people are going to honk even though there’s no hazard), like you mentioned, be aware of your surroundings and don’t do it if it’s going to freak someone out. I didn’t think about it when I was a kid, but I bet the truckers that honked did it when there weren’t other drivers around, while the ones that didn’t honk were aware of other drivers/pedestrians and didn’t want to startle them.
Jerry
Some “rules of the road” are simple matters of courtesy, and citations occur at the officer’s discretion. Too often I have observed officers stopping drivers unnecessarily, Too often in traffic court I have seen officers using their ‘discretionary police powers’ to register personal displeasure with a driver’s equipment, clothing, speech, style, appearance or simple manner of driving. Citations are often issued on a manufactured pretext to ease an officer’s perceived insult to his authority. And they are often issued justifiably, but not when really necessary, simply because a driver has given the officer an excuse to pull him over, hassle him, scare him, cite and fine him, leaving a bad spot in the driver’s memory for a long, long, long time. Fear and anger are at the root of most fatal encounters between officers and the public. They are rarely stand-alone incidents. Even if everybody is sweet as cherry pie, those negative responses from past or future encounters WILL rear their ugly heads and encourage the hatred that already exists between unnecessary bad attitudes of Law Enforcement, and the members of the community. How many times does gross misfortune occur for one member, and the other experiences unreasonable schadenfreude for a long time thereafter. Even as I write this, I am reminded of encounters with L.E. that could and should have ended on a good note, but did not. The violation of some code is often only a miniscule part of the encounter, yet it so often poisons a lifetime of encounters, long after its justification has been forgotten. Unexpectedly and unnecessarily strike a mule with a whip, and he will serve you faithfully for 30 years to get a single chance to kick your face off. And that, with no apology due.
Merrill Gehman
Jerry. I agree with you 99.99 percent. It’s so good to hear someone express these issues from an experianced drivers perspective. Most drivers know what your saying is true, but cant express it as clearly as you have. Their voices aren’t heard. Thank you so much
Merrill Gehman
Doug. I’m wondering if you could do some research on traffic engineers, and their lack o seeing the decisions they are making from the drivers perspective. Here in Alaska I’m working on three different locations where from a drivers perspective , traffic engineers have lowered speed limits or reverted back to a speed limit 10 mph lower than is reasonable. They’ve also neglected to place an “ end roadwork sign”, or post a speed limit sign at the end of a reduced road work speed zone that was being enforced profusely, and refused to put such signs up when confronted with the lack of such signs. They’ve also said that the MUCD doesn’t reguire it , which is correct, and also should be changed so it is more clear where construction reduced speed ends for all drivers so that all drivers are obeying one speed limit rather than some still obeying the reduced speed for a long time and others assuming the original speed applies even though it’s not posted.
Pete C
I give everyone that lane drifts in or out of my lane a warning honk.