Go drive in Boston ya’ chucklehead.
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Wow. That thing looks awful. And I live in England, home of the bizarre roundabout.
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In some countries it’s fully coded communication, as in x number of honks at these intervals means accident, cop, et cetera…
If someone is sitting talking on a cell phone at a green light, after a few seconds (because most people have poor reflexes and I try to be patient) I will honk. I’ve never had to honk twice in that scenario. But this wasn’t that scenario. The cross-street wasn’t clear. The biker was simply impatient and didn’t like someone talking on their cell phone. With that, I sympathize, but your horn is not there to police what people do in their cars or harangue drivers into making unsafe turns, and you’ll acomplish nothing through that use of it but increasing danger, whether it’s a cop or not. The cop becomes the bigger asshole here, but the biker was not in the right.
ETA: I looked up the law for cell phone use while driving in Colorado. As best I can tell, it’s legal for drivers over the age of 18 to talk, but not text, on a cell phone while driving. It’s not said in the video if the cop was texting. Bottom line, not the time or place to try and educate other drivers (unsafe drivers are to be evaded, not engaged), but the cop was still a mega-asshole about it.
The intersection here is not an intersection, it is a two lane roundabout with a yield. It was clear for traffic to flow between the small black car (kia?) And the passenger bus.
But being on a phone distracts anyone. Even officers. He should have moved to the side of the road at the safest point, and not impede or endanger other drivers.
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Is it your job, or the person behind you, to decide when you have enough room between cross traffic to make a turn or go through an intersection where you don’t have the right of way? I personally won’t make a turn unless I determine I have enough room between cross-traffic, and no amount of honking will convince me to make a turn I think isn’t safe. But I’m genuinely curious whether you think that should be the decision of the person behind you. Now if there’s no cross-traffic and someone is just sitting pretty at a green light or yield sign, then by all means, I’ll honk. And that won’t be me, but if it were, I would wave apologetically and go. Here, there was cross-traffic.
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I think it should be against the law everywhere, but it doesn’t appear to be in Colorado.
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Honking isn’t only for people breaking the law, it’s for situations that are or could be dangerous. When someone is impeding traffic by not moving through an intersection promptly, it’s dangerous, particularly to motorcyclists, who are frequently struck from behind by other inattentive drivers.
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A couple people pointed out it is illegal in that state. A rather stupid law, IMHO. But what ever.
But still, this guy isn’t the phone police. If I honked at everyone speeding on my morning commute, most mornings it would just be on the whole time.
Re-reading the poorly laid-out DMV site, it appears it’s only legal to use a cell phone in emergency circumstances (I assume it means talk since it says texting while driving is always illegal). I originally mis-read the site.
I’m going to respectfully but vehemently disagree. At the very least, someone should use a hands-free or earbud if they’re going to talk on the phone. Both hands should be free when driving, especially in traffic.
I don’t think many people think the biker acted prudently. Even the biker appears to regret the result, whether or not he regrets honking. But the sheer dickishness of the cop in response is a level of asshole well above the honk itself, and I think that’s what most people find issue with.
At the end of the day, people are too impolite behind the wheel. We even had one commenter earlier in this thread with a broken exclamation point and caps-lock key, so apparently people get mad just thinking about driving, which is probably part of why so many people die in auto accidents every year. But the criticisms of the cop’s reaction seem pretty much on point, IMO.
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Many US cities are starting to adopt roundabouts as a way to keep the traffic moving even if it’s profoundly confusing to most American drivers. Because roundabouts are not used consistently like in other parts of the world, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to understand what to do when approaching these new intersections.
This is recent example of another Colorado interchange (the new I25 and Fillmore interchange in Colorado Springs) that is confusing the heck out of people - they call it “diverging diamond” where the lanes actually criss-cross so you’re briefly driving on the left hand side of the road as you cross the bridge.
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During Occupy activities the Denver police issued at least one ticket for honking in support of roadside protesters before word got out and public opinion laughed in their face. Another application of the same law…
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A bit of an extreme example, but when the average citizen does nothing to improve society, then it falls on the police and government to do what they wish. I’d much rather citizens participate.
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I truly don’t understand why they built this in this way. What problem were they trying to solve?
Left turns do not need to wait for the dedicated signal.
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I… but… what… how does it work?!?!?
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Actually, surprisingly- no.
Down in the Caribbean (relative to my current location) the horn is used to signal please & thank you. The most polite driving society I’ve ever seen. Embarrassed by traffic, they let cars merge immediately and - surprise surprise- less traffic.
Took a tick to get used to it, but once I did I was in awe.
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I checked on the Colorado “road rage” statute. It is appallingly broad, and does indeed include sounding the horn as a potential indicator of road rage. I’m too lazy to find the citation again.
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It also slows the traffic. My town put baby (one lane) traffic circles on a low-use east/west street at every other intersection. They did this to slow down the north/south roads and to create a shared east/west road with cyclists.
In general, Los Angeles County hates left hand turn signals. If a traffic circle helps someone take a left without waiting to cycling through three signals, I’m all for it.
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I believe someone already cited it above. 
I thought driving with headphones on was illegal (talking car here, don’t know about a motorcycle) but I see a ton of people with their white ibuds in…
