Road manners

The thing that makes me want to strangle people

Back in my pre-blog days, I mentioned the Israeli habit of honking their car horns virtually all the time (even at red lights). It is really excessive and it is the one thing in this country that actually makes me want to leap out and strangle people.

The other day, I was enjoying a delightful lunch at an outdoor cafe in a quiet, residential area. Then, suddenly, a deafening HONK! emanated from a large SUV about 30 feet from us. We ignored it. But then, HONK! HONK! HONK! HONK! HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK.

I was aghast. Others were too. The lady apparently wanted to get through the single lane in the parking lot, but someone was parked halfway on the sidewalk AND the lady had this excessively large SUV, so she couldn't get through. Mind you, the shopping center is so small that it only has about 10 parking spaces, so whoever owned the offending car could not possibly have not heard the first honk.

At any rate, no one stepped out to move the car, and SUV Lady was honking so much that Israelis were actually getting offended by it and one man approached the lady telling her to stop. Then, the cafe owner also did the same. But, the lady ignored their pleas and HONKKKKKKKED again.

What does this achieve? Why are some Israelis so fixated on this practice? I do not understand. If I hadn't been so shocked, I might have actually gone up and physically harmed that woman.