Flashing Headlights – Signaling with the Optical Horn

There’s a neat little feature on almost all modern vehicles that allows the driver to flash his high beams whether or not his regular beams are being used.  It’s called an “Optical Horn”.  Flashing headlights has a history.

Prior to the advent of these cute little devices, high beams were employed by a switch – often a button found on the floorboard next to the left foot.  The high beam switch only worked if the headlights were already on. 

As usual, the foreign car makers were first to discover that a high beam switch on the turn signal would be a little easier to operate.  While they were at it, they decided to add a feature that would allow the high beams to be flicked, whether or not the regular driving headlights were on.  The Optical Horn was born.

Now even before the Optical Horn, bright lights were often used as signals – mostly by long distance drivers (spell that truckers) and almost always at night.  Some Four wheel drivers (spell that cars or small trucks) who were often on the road with those big trucker types, soon learned the rules of communication.  It was a great way to tell those big guys, “Hey, I’m a Driver too.  I know the rules of the road.”  It also kept things quite a bit safer.

The concept was simple.  If you were in a fast lane and you saw a trucker signaling to come into your lane ahead of you, you had two options.  The first was to hit the brights with a longer burst to let them know you were there and coming through.  The second was to give him a short flick or two which would suggest, “Okay, I see you coming over.  I’ll lighten up and let you slide in front of me.”  This would usually be followed by a signal from said trucker who would flash his trailer lights off and on again as a “Thanks, Buddy”.
 
Enter the Optical Horn.  There really weren’t any written rules on using it, but drivers now had a new toy.  They had to figure out something to do with it!  Those original unwritten rules got brutally corrupted.  They remain so.

Today, there are two most common uses of this neat little device.  The first is to signal oncoming traffic that there’s radar or police activity ahead of them that the signaling driver already lucked through.

The second is to signal a slower driver in front of you to “Get out of the way – I want to move.”  For this signal to work, we must assume that the slower driver has a rear view mirror, uses it, actually knows what is meant by the flash, and doesn’t panic off the side of the road wiping out a whole bunch of expensive shrubbery in the process.

One could argue that both of these uses tend to be abused but we don’t have space to go there.

While both of the above signals are reasonably well understood, the original signals have become so misused that at best, they’re worthless and at worst they can be misleading.  If you’re signaling a driver that you’re “coming through” and he misconstrues it as “come on over” – the consequences aren’t very hard to imagine.

Never the less, a basic understanding is probably helpful.  Maybe we can even develop a standard which would be based on those rather historic principles we discussed earlier.  They would go something like this:

• If you see a driver signaling to get into your lane –
    o One or two short blinks means “come on over.”
    o A longer steady blink means “hold on, I’m coming through and really don’t want to have to stand on my brakes to avoid hitting you.”
    o In either case it would be understood as, “I see you – keep an eye on me!”

• If you see flashes in your rearview mirror –
    o A longer, steady blink would mean, “Please move over.  I want to get by you.”   Maybe I have a real emergency, or maybe you’re slow poking in the passing lane.
    o A short blink or two would suggest, “Hi guy, your turn signal’s been on for the last fifty miles and I’m guessing you don’t know it.”

• Blinks from the other side of the road –
    o Usually suggest police action or a radar trap but,
    o Could also mean “Accident” or “Obstruction” ahead on your side of the road.  “Cool it.”

• A lengthy, short burst of frantic blinks –
    o “Hey, I’m a complete maniac and I don’t know what I’m doing – but I’m doing it.  Avoid me at all costs.”

Does any one else out there have some thoughts?  It really would be nice if we could kind of standardize use of the Optical Horn.

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Posted by Frank Miller at 6/26/2008 3:11 PM
Categories: Driving Experience

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