In clearing out some of the older chart inventory here at Car Charts HQ, we came across this one, which among other things proves that social scientists will study anything.
Okay, there’s this global warming concept. Which in terms of using your car might mean more scorching of your hands on the steering wheel that’s been baking in the sun for a few hours, or sweatily sticking to the seat, while you beg the AC to kick in. But it might also mean you’re just a little bit testier than you otherwise would be, and so have less patience for other drivers on the road. Is this hypothesis likely to be correct? Well, Kenrick and MacFarlane have come to our rescue and have studied the topic. They ran an experiment in Phoenix where they deliberately obstructed traffic at an intersection, and then measured the propensity for blocked drivers to honk at the offending car, and the tendency for them to lean on the horn longer, as correlated with a heat-and-humidity index. Both variables rose with the index. Thus the chart of the day:
Finally we can be at rest regarding the heat-and-honk relationship. If you are hot and bothered you are gonna lean on that klaxon1. Patience drops as temperature rises.
I do feel sympathy for the authors’ partner in the experiment, a nameless grad student who may have been psychologically scarred for life after repeating this maneuver a few dozen times:
“A female confederate, driving a 1980 Datsun 200SX, positioned her vehicle near the target intersection. When the light turned red, she moved her car to the head of the intersection and waited for a subject to pull in behind her. The confederate then waited for the light to turn green and remained stationary throughout the 12-second course of the light. The confederate was instructed to keep still, with her eyes forward, car in neutral, foot off the brakes, and her hands on the steering wheel.”
Then the authors recorded any honking initiation and its duration. I hope the young lady has recovered fully from her brief career as a… confederate.
By the way, this study dates from 1986, so it probably can’t be replicated today, now that almost everyone has air-conditioning. (Frankly, if you live in Phoenix and don’t have AC in your car, you’re likely already dead anyway, and so can’t honk at all.) At least not in the USA: I bet you could try it in some non-OECD country, with an older or less expensive vehicle parc.
We’ll be back later with more serious posts, but I wanted to get this one done as I am in Los Angeles at present, where it just hit an unseasonably high 95 degrees F (35 C for metric readers). So this topic came to mind.
Or you live in Boston, where based on personal observation, many drivers believe they are required by law to honk, regardless of temperature.