Nepal traffic police seek to tame blaring horns

KATMANDU: Traffic police in Nepal have declared a war on high-decibel honking, penalizing erring drivers and seizing more than 1,000 shrill horns that have made life unbearable on often gridlocked streets.
In a nation where drivers tend to honk as easily — and constantly — as they breathe, police launched a drive earlier this month to tame the noisemakers, charging vehicles with blaring horns fines of up to 5,000 Nepali rupees ($53).
Police also confiscated more than 1,000 loud horns in the past week in a bid to cut down the noise pollution on the streets of the capital, said Katmandu Metropolitan Traffic Police spokesman Pawan Giri.
“Such vehicles have caused accidents as pedestrians, distracted by the cacophony of blaring horns, bump into each other and the passing traffic,” Giri told AFP.
Some rogue drivers have gone so far as to replace their vehicles’ original, comparatively subdued, horns with noisier digital horns, Giri said.
Honking is also a common practice in bordering India, where drivers hoot constantly while fighting their way through chaotic traffic.
The India director of German carmaker Audi said last year that the company had made special horns for its vehicles sold in the country, since local drivers tend to honk much more than their European counterparts.