Safe Speed Forums

Not sure if they have horns, but just letting off a blank in the main armament should get the attention you seek!

Reminds me of a cartoon I saw where a car is facing a large tank in a narrow country lane.
The main gun is pointing down at the car, and the commander is saying "Of COURSE I could reverse, but I just dont want to!"

Could have done with one today, when two artics met at a 10 foot wide spot on Hollins Lane between Burneside and the A6!

_________________
Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!

I drove a Mack artic while working in Ohio. We had big snow while I was there and it had air horns with out covers on them. Air horns that are full of snow sound like someone sneaking a fart out in church, not that I've ever been to church.

The air horns on the Peterbilts I drove were could for snareing sparrows .

Ah yes! The current bain of my life - the Peugeot "CAN" electrical system!

In order to save a mountain of wiring (and enable the car to do fancy tricks like varying the delay of the intermittent wipe with road speed and flicking the rear wiper when you engage reverse in the rain), many manufacturers are going over to a multiplexed wiring system. Peugeot's is the "CAN" system. Here, there is a sort of "ring main" right round the car and EVERYTHING (I exaggerate slightly) is connected to it. Each "thing" has a receiver built into it and each switch has a transmitter. So, when you turn the sidelights on, the transmitter in the switch sends a signal down the "ring main" which only the sidelights will respond to. They then start drawing power from the system. When you switch off, the opposite happens.

I don't know about the 307 but I guess it's similar architecture to other current Peugeots. If that's the case, there will be a high priority CAN system (for things like fuel injection and ABS) and a low priority one for things like courtesy lights. Now I'd have though the horn would be on the high priority system but I guess that since the French never seem to use their horns for less than 30 seconds at a time, a bit of a delay is neither here nor there!

What winds me up is that unlike the old-fashioned "analogue" systems where you could give the slightest "pip" so as not to make a nuisance of yourself. With a "digital" system, of course, the contact you make with the horn push doesn't actually send power to the horn. It sends power to the CAN controller. This then tells the horn to work. The very slight "pip" you give on the horn gets translated as a signal to the horn to work for the shortest amount of time that the controller can make it work. This (at least on my car) is longer than I would normally want - but only by a bit.

Ahh!
So that explains why when you see the glow of lights approaching you, and flick the stalk to disengage main beam, there is a pause while the electronics think "Did you mean to flick that switch, or was it an accident.... oh, OK then, here's your low beam. Christ that duffer coming the other way is flashing his main beam at you for not dipping sooner! Why the hell didn't you flick the switch sooner!!"

And when you turn off the ignition, you are halfway out of the car before the radio dies off!

_________________
Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!

Yup!

You gotta love 'em!

The light dipping problem is compounded by the fact tha tthe stalk has only one position and is spring-loaded. You can do clever things like that with "CAN". It knows to "toggle" the device being controlled between two states with every press of the switch. So pulling the stalk once puts main beam on and pulling it again puts dipped beam on. Pressing the child lock button once engages the child locks and pressing it again releases them (and so on).

That means that when someone comes towards me at night, I pull the stalk and dip my lights. Because of the delay, they sometimes flash me and because the stalk always returns to the same position, I think "maybe I forgot" - so I pull it again just as the lights dip - which then toggles tham back to main...

...at which point, the best I can hope for is that the oncoming driver thinks "hey, he must know me and is giving me a friendly flash"...

...well, it helps ME get through the day anyway!

I've never used the horn on the Legacy, except for when picking up my GF from work (since sitting there with the engine running and phoning her is illegal now!)

On the Passat it gets used a lot as people regularly like to ignore it and start changing lane into the side of it. there is one roundabout in particular (if you know Aylesbury, it's the "Blue Leanie" roundabout) which was recently repainted from 2 lanes to 3 lanes, and while L2 takes you directly to the exit lane that most people want (L1 on the road towards the gyratory), many people use L3 and then just act like it's a 2 lane roundabout.

So, when the horn failed (it seems that the Passat horn's failure mode is to turn into a blob of rust the shape of a discus) it was replaced with a set of £15 air horns from Halfords. Now just a quick blast of that and instead of having to avoid the person making a dumb lane change, they get to move out of the way and I can continue as normal.

I'd say that horn was useful

As a biker (a very new one, mind, I've been riding a 125cc hire bike on L-plates for a week in preparation for my Direct Access Course) I find the horn a vital survival tool. If I think someone is going to pull out on me or otherwise cut me up, I use the horn. It either makes sure they see me or stops the sleepy muppets from merely seeing me and not acknowledging that pulling out anyway is both dangerous and stupid. On a couple of occassions someone had started to pull out but stopped when I beeped.
A lifesaver.

Edit: oops, I just realised how old this topic is.

Don't worry



There are some real gems in those old posts, keep searching
Anton

_________________
Speed limit sign radio interview. TV Snap Unhappy
“It has never been the rule in this country – I hope it never will be - that suspected criminal offences must automatically be the subject of prosecution” He added that there should be a prosecution: “wherever it appears that the offence or the circumstances of its commission is or are of such a character that a prosecution in respect thereof is required in the public interest”
This approach has been endorsed by Attorney General ever since 1951. CPS Code

Don't blame PSA for it, it's a Bosch system.