Cars Cutting Me Off: Do Horns Help?

eSurfer

100 W
Joined
Feb 5, 2016
Messages
170
Location
Newport Beach, CA
I'm finding that I am getting cut off by cars much more now that I'm on an eBike. I know it's because I'm going much faster than they expect and think they are past me. Other times drivers see me coming but pull out in front of me, again not realizing that I'm going pretty fast. Has anybody gotten one of those really loud horns and honked it in that situation? If so, does it do any good?
 
Usually the only thing that works in those situations is situational awareness, and slowing down to avoid the problem.

Horns only let them know there is something somewhere around, and they are just as likely to swerve into you to avoid something they think might hurt them as to swerve away from you, as they may not find the source of the sound until it's too late.
 
I solved it by riding with two lights on at all times. Nobody cuts me off anymore, but rather wait till I pass by. I ride about 2 to 3 feet away from the curb, this way almost all cars pass me by going on the next lane.
 
Most drivers here are elderly.
They look at you and then pull right in front of you.

When I rode an ice powered motorized bicycle I used a 35 watt driving light powered by a discarded Wallmart electric bicycle lead acid battery 12 volt 20 amp hour.
With an un-muffled 48 cc two stroke They can hear you coming a block away. All the Harley Davidson motorcycle riders use open pipes for survival.
I am now using two 20 watt led driving lights, and two 105 db horns powered off the 60 volt pack.
The electric car owners complain also. Not enough noise . The little old ladies pull in front of them too.

Ride before or after rush hour.
For me the safest time to ride is after 9:00 to 11:00 Too hot in the afternoon summer. Or in the summer when the Snowbirds are gone.
All the locals shop at night. The drunks get up at noon.
 
Get yerself a DC-DC ta get you 12V onboard:
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(And take a course in CPR for the poor car drivers maybe.)
 
I looked at those airhorns 13.99 from a well known Chinese supplier.
The DC to DC converter killed the deal.$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
The locked rotor draw is very high when the compressor starts.
It works OK on a car with another Bigger relay than what is shipped with the kit..
My horns were 5.00 each shipped from feabay
 
Horns? Nah. I would not draw unwanted attention to a high speed unlegal e-bike.

snellemin said:
I solved it by riding with two lights on at all times. Nobody cuts me off anymore, but rather wait till I pass by. I ride about 2 to 3 feet away from the curb, this way almost all cars pass me by going on the next lane.


Light are great. Even in daylight. Front and rear.
Riding motorcycle I got custom'd to "use up all space in my lane". Placing the bike past the middle of the lane. That way cars see you, understand that they will need to change lane to go past you and you avoid many potentially dangerous situations. If you "own the lane" you are forcing vehicles to count you as an obstacle and not just any soft smurf they can push past forcing you off the road or worse.

I've seen many youtubes of e-bikes riding far to close to the curb. Suddenly they pass stationary cars parked along side the inner lane with just inches margin at high speed. What happens if one of the parked cars suddenly opens a door? It could end up deadly, and for one unlucky e-biker it ended in tragedy some years ago.

Stay safe and ride like every other vehicle is driven by stupid idiots. Assume nothing and stay alert.
 
I find horns useful but not when they cross in front of me. I'd still honk at them from anger. It is valuable whenever you see backup lights on cars and trucks. Especially in an area with head in parking. Once there was an oversized 4 wheel drive pickup that was in reverse coming at me. Horn saved me. Little boys get mesmerized with my ride. They want to ride it. A fun thing with little kids is to get them to press the horn button. They don't know it is a horn and it scares them at first then they start laughing. But not for the real little kids though. They are OK watching their older brother and laughing at him when he gets startled. Now on my second build for a while I finally ordered a horn and switch. Should be here any day. I'll be safer soon.
 
The only time audio works for me is when navigating through stop and go traffic. Even then,there are driver "blind spots" and bus stops that are a part of driver prevention awareness on my part. I give more credence to the visual. For example ; https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=37813&hilit=+lefty
 
aroundqube said:
The only time audio works for me is when navigating through stop and go traffic. Even then,there are driver "blind spots" and bus stops that are a part of driver prevention awareness on my part. I give more credence to the visual. For example ; https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=37813&hilit=+lefty
Wow! I've never seen, or heard of a "lefty stick" before. I'll bet that really annoys car drivers...which is a great reason to get one in itself. :twisted: Do many bikers really use those? Seems like a great idea.
 
Openly packing a gun works. I used to get incredible respect when I went bird hunting on a motorcycle. Shotgun meant people gave me a ton of riding room. :twisted:

But really, that's not practical.

About all you can do, is ride different. Cars can only cut you off if you let them. If you expect you have some kind of right of way, you are just riding like you want to be hit by a car. Road rights are a great thing, but in practice, I yield to everything that is 10x heavier than me.
 
eSurfer said:
aroundqube said:
The only time audio works for me is when navigating through stop and go traffic. Even then,there are driver "blind spots" and bus stops that are a part of driver prevention awareness on my part. I give more credence to the visual. For example ; https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=37813&hilit=+lefty
Wow! I've never seen, or heard of a "lefty stick" before. I'll bet that really annoys car drivers...which is a great reason to get one in itself. :twisted: Do many bikers really use those? Seems like a great idea.


Not a chance I would ever use one, first of all it look fugly. Secondly what?? When riding a bike I prefer to be able at anytime to go between lanes at red light to advance in standstill traffic, and I know one day I would just forget about the stupid left stick being folded out and I would end up scratching someones car.

No need for left stick - just own your lane and place the bike accordingly in the lane.
 
Nelson37 said:
Ride like you are completely invisible, because a truly amazing amount of the time, you are. THAT will save your butt, reliably and consistently, because it encourages and enforces the only riding habit that has a decent chance of doing so.

Very good advice, thanks.
 
snellemin said:
I solved it by riding with two lights on at all times. Nobody cuts me off anymore, but rather wait till I pass by. I ride about 2 to 3 feet away from the curb, this way almost all cars pass me by going on the next lane.

Now I understand why bikers do that and it makes sense. Really ticks off motorists though. Do you get many expressions of anger from drivers? Fingers? Horns? Swerving around close to you?
 
Having ridden motorcycles for decades, I'm used to being invisible to motorists. I assume they are all out to get me. Here in rural Idaho you better just stay the hell out of the way as much as possible, rights be damned, being right and in the hospital ain't good. The good thing is when I drive my car or trucks I have the same habit. Even going through a green light in my 52,000 lb. crane truck, I'm looking for a car going through the red. Driving or riding this defensively long enough, in my case anyway, and I can relate 2 to 4 incidents in the last 30 years that would have ended very badly, one fatally (for the old man who pulled out in front of the crane still can't believe that one) if I had been driving "normal". Bike riders, when they drive, are probably some of the best drivers out there. When ever I hear about a wreck where someone was hit while they had the green light and someone blew through the red, I think "weren't they looking?" A horn is way down on my list for bike safety. A sometimes employee of mine, an ex army ranger and full time/no driving at all biker, carries a concealed handgun at all times, and claims to have no issues with motorists :shock:
 
Not that I'm advocating horns ( I go with the "treat it like a video game where every car is secretly trying to crush you and surviving gets you to the bonus round" philosophy) but instead of electric powered dc/DC horns this type works just fine and are really light and refillable with a bike pump..
 
actual practical reply: a buddy of mine used to use an airhorn with a little bottle of compressed air hooked up to it... could be recharged with an air compressor or even a foot pump. course, if I went with an airhorn I'd use widely available gas cartridges to provide the power, there are a number of threaded and threadless cartridges out there that would do the trick. I would suspect that co2 charges would be most effective since it's stored in liquid form and thus has higher energy capacity by volume compared to dry nitrogen or argon (both of which seem to be pretty pricey in cartridges). I'd use a check valve (spring and ball bearing) with a little volume chamber after the cartridge to ensure maximum efficiency and vapor conversion prior to delivery to the airhorn, a simple push-action poppet valve could control the signal.
 
Air horns are my favorite horn sound but it can be a PITA to manage. The “least trouble” system simply uses a small 12V air compressor. Designed for cars/motorcycles they’re not particularly compact. The horns can be relatively lightweight when constructed of plastic but the pump needs to find a place and weighs a bit. Combined as a tire pump it can be a useful potential tour/bivouac system?

But a realization happened when I asked myself - “is it really necessary”? Honestly, in many cases once you need to alert another vehicle it’s already too late.

Best advice in this novice thread is the stuff about using your brain and training with defensive driving tactics which can mostly remove the threat of whatever hazardous, heavyweight, poison spraying hurtling machinery may do along our small footprint little path.
 
tiny_n_terrible said:
I looked at those airhorns 13.99 from a well known Chinese supplier.
The DC to DC converter killed the deal.$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
The locked rotor draw is very high when the compressor starts.

Seems like a big ole power resistor would address both those issues well enough. It wouldn't even have to be big enough to dump the voltage difference continuously, because you don't use the horn continuously.

I think a horn is only worth having if it sounds like a motor vehicle horn. The offender's instantaneous reaction should be, "oh crap", not "what is that?"
 
I've been run over before, rear ended. Had a 120dB 12v motorcycle horn fitted, driver knocked me on the floor getting pinned under the bumper. Couldn't move so I used the horn, driver didn't hear or even notice it until i forced myself to the side of the vehicle and in anger threw my helmet at them. They had the radio on... good excuse... :evil:

Most people drive with audio distraction, they won't notice before and certainly not after when you need them to, especially the older hard of hearing folks. I did have multiple standard bicycle lights, you know the ones look bright but are discreet to the bike frame.

Sod that, get a big red rear flasher and bigger front lights that make you look like a vehicle not a 'visually' slow poke bicycle and have them on all the time. Since then I very rarely get cut up and other road users now treat me as a 'motorcycle'. Still means you have to be visually aware of your surrounding and pre-empt drivers, just means your not constantly dragging your brake at junctions and re-accelerating, making your ride less efficient.

DC-DC is tenner thats only just ££ :)
 
Chalo said:
tiny_n_terrible said:
I think a horn is only worth having if it sounds like a motor vehicle horn. The offender's instantaneous reaction should be, "oh crap", not "what is that?"

Decided on and installed a horn. Here's my setup: https://youtu.be/when3v7NVFk Do you think I overdid it? :)
 
eSurfer said:
Chalo said:
tiny_n_terrible said:
I think a horn is only worth having if it sounds like a motor vehicle horn. The offender's instantaneous reaction should be, "oh crap", not "what is that?"

Decided on and installed a horn. Here's my setup: https://youtu.be/when3v7NVFk Do you think I overdid it? :)


More like this: https://youtu.be/zC4G9s7GO4o?t=68
 
Watch from 2:25. It's funny and I have just spent 20 mins on youtube laughing fairly hard because of eSurfer, however it does kind of prove that you won't have an accident, but someone else is very likely to.

[youtube]2kDORB3vR8s[/youtube]
 
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