You all have encountered those people in traffic, they are the "honkers." These people honk at everything, everyone, everywhere, and frankly, they are not ashamed of it. They probably think that by honking they can make the traffic light turn green faster, a behavior much like beating your WiFi router when the internet is slow. However, "honking until it turns green" technique won't be a possibility in Mumbai anymore.
Mumbai, the most crowded city in the world, is understandably also one of the most congested cities. 18,41 million people trying to reach their destinations in unison is what nightmares are made of. The cars whizz by from every direction, and the car horn becomes a tool of survival. However, the noise pollution in Mumbai has gotten so bad that the Mumbai police felt the need to intervene.
The police had a brilliant idea that will stop all the honkers, and thereby, the noise pollution in Mumbai. And if the trend catches on, maybe on Earth?
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The project has a very smart and simple name: "The Punishing Signal." They connected decibel meters to a few signal poles around Mumbai. If the decibel levels ever went over 85 dB, the signal would reset and the light would stay red for longer. Genius!
The entertaining video shows the shocked drivers of Mumbai, honking like crazy one second, and being forced into utter silence next.
Find out how the @MumbaiPolice hit the mute button on #Mumbai’s reckless honkers. #HonkResponsibly pic.twitter.com/BAGL4iXiPH — Mumbai Police (@MumbaiPolice) January 31, 2020
It is for sure that this project is prone to some chaos until that very magical moment where everyone understands. It is a nightmare to think about rushing somewhere, while some terrible person honks without knowing the rules. Luckily, another concerned citizen had the same train of thought:
Dear Police Team, What will happen if Anyone's Mom or dad needs to be urgently rush to the Hospital in a emergency in there vehicle or Any lady going through emergency for pregnancy and got Stucked in this DB trap that will be most tragedy scene, give Solution for that too — Ganesan Sheregar (@ganeshsheregar3) February 2, 2020
And thankfully, the Mumbai police seem to have thought everything.
Sir, we really appreciate your outlook. In such cases a Green field corridor is being set up during scenario in Mumbai and surrounding areas. Meanwhile, for prompt help you can #Dial100 or tweet us directly. We will certainly help you at utmost effort. — Mumbai Police (@MumbaiPolice) February 2, 2020
The exercises done in November and December are trial runs. The police are discussing how they can implement it across the city, and hopefully, other cities will catch up too.
wrcker on February 10th, 2020 at 16:45 UTC »
It doesn't even have to work, you just need to roll out a system that only rarely works and people will assume it's working, their own confirmation bias working against them.
snailboy on February 10th, 2020 at 16:15 UTC »
Wouldn’t that seriously disrupt the grid? I thought that all the traffic lights of a city’s intersections were at least marginally timed out in relation to each other to keep traffic flow as even as possible. If that’s true, wouldn’t introducing a variable like this just fuck up the whole system?
tonybob123456789 on February 10th, 2020 at 15:25 UTC »
What's stopping some really patient asshole from honking just to mess with me?