You honk when someone is stopped in the middle of the road for no reason, you honk when the light turned green 30 seconds ago and the person in front of you is too busy talking on their cell phone to notice, you honk when someone cuts across six lanes and cuts right in front of you. Those make sense. What doesn't make sense is to honk while sitting in traffic that is obviously not moving for a reason that you can't see because you're 18 car behind the problem. Yet somehow people do this ALL the time. Everyone seems to honk in situations where nothing will be changed by honking. It's as if they think, oh, this whole lane of traffic isn't moving, maybe if I show that I'm annoyed then everyone else will decide to go too. No, actually, everyone else is just as annoyed as you, but they realized that nothing is going to change by honking.
I don't actually use my horn very often in general because I tend to verbally assault bad drivers from the privacy of my car, but I have used it more frequently here since people do stupid things. I'm not about to honk at traffic though, because I'm pretty sure it won't do anything. Maybe it's just some people's expression of rage, but to me it just seems pointless.
For me, honking can be dealt with like merging. You do it when you need to. If you're in a critical merging situation and your lane is ending, then yes, I will let you in. If you're just cutting over lanes randomly and not trying to exit, make a turn or merge on to a highway then I don't feel the need to be nice. The same thing with honking; if you are in a critical situation that requires action, then you honk, otherwise you just go about your business.
In closing, I present this picture that I found of a discreetly modified street sign in NYC. No need to say more.
my sister and i always joke that the horns on our cars will be the first things to need replacing... i'm also aware i need extreme anger management! ;D
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