Posted by Jeff on March 07, 2002 at 13:33:29:
When I lived in Cambridge my street had major honking, subwoofer thumping, peel-out, and siren issues. A couple of blocks away, there was a more major thoroughfare that underwent some traffic calming project involving enormous raised crosswalks with knobby ramps and they also added some joggedy curves to the street so that you couldn't pick up much speed. I think those things probably made it a little safer for
pedestrians, but probably had no effect on honking.
For honking, I think it would be great to have some sort of electronic device that quickly detects the sound wave of a horn and emits a focussed counter-wave that silences it. But then, what about when people legitimately need to honk to warn of danger? Maybe you could get an Internet cam mounted out there with a microphone that transmits license plate numbers of honkers to the police for later ticketing via mail. I don't know, it's a tough one.