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The origins of ‘horn ok please,’ India’s most ubiquitous phrase (2016)

• rob74 5y ago
  > Trucks, in particular, are often not even equipped with side mirrors in the first place. Maybe mandating side mirrors (or rather enforcing this mandate - I can't quite believe that side mirrors are optional for roadworthiness, even in India) would be a better point to start with, rather than outlawing the phrase "Horn OK Please"?
  • treeman79 5y ago
    In many places no cars have mirrors. They get smashed off by other cars promptly. Driving is more akin to number cars
    • somedude895 5y ago
      I spent a month in Cuba in 2008 and though I didn't see any signs telling people to honk when overtaking, everyone was doing it on the highway. A lot of cars in Cuba are in terrible shape, but it might also have to do with the fact that the Autopista 1 is in very bad condition. You really have to focus on avoiding the massive potholes, so you have less time to pay attention to your surroundings. Honking helps the driver in front to make sure to swerve away from you while you're overtaking on the next pothole.
  • iso1631 5y ago
    "Indian drivers rarely use their side mirrors" Doesn't matter if the mirrors are there or not if culturally people don't use them.
    • alex_smart 5y ago
      Yup, the rough heuristic that most drivers follow in India is: if I see empty road ahead of me, I am going in.
    • Etheryte 5y ago
      I experienced confusion about this when I travelled to Indonesia some years ago, but a local taxi driver made it easy to understand: "What's in front of you is your responsibility." It's an unwritten local driving rule and once you know it, the local traffic is considerably easier to grok. No one looks behind them because everyone's agreed that they only worry about things in front of them. If you want to pass a car in front of you then it's up to you to make it work. Likewise with driving a car in the sea of scooters that Indonesian traffic oftentimes is. Worry about the scooters in front of you, the ones behind you and on your sides will do their best to look out for themselves and don't expect much from you.
      • pmontra 5y ago
        I look at the rear mirror all the time, especially before stopping. Is that car behind me too fast and will crash into me? A taxi decided that didn't like me stopping at a pedestrian crossing a few nights ago and overtook me. I honked and both the people crossing the street and the taxi stopped. I think the danger trumped the rule of never honking at night in a city.
        • iso1631 5y ago
          Was this in Jakarta or a smaller city?
          • pmontra 5y ago
            It was in Milan, Italy. Horns are uncommon but there are some random crazy drivers in hurry to get somewhere :-)
      • rhn_mk1 5y ago
        How do people back out into a street there?
        • skhr0680 5y ago
          My guess is that they back into parking spots to avoid that scenario
  • dluga93 5y ago
    I guess the hearing impaired can't drive in India.
    • lvass 5y ago
      And you can't drive too long before becoming hearing impaired.
  • alex_smart 5y ago
    Indian driving is like ant colony, but it's humans.
    • masklinn 5y ago
      Way my colleagues told me, circulation is such a mess there’s no way you can check all around you (plus what’s that going to change, defensive driving in bumper-to-bumper traffic means complete paralysis) so the only things you look at are in front, and the people following have to be ready. Needless to say I opted out of driving, crossing roads is as far as I took the challenge of directly interacting with indian circulation.
      • alex_smart 5y ago
        >Way my colleagues told me, circulation is such a mess there’s no way you can check all around you It's not so much that you can't, but that most people don't and with no driver education and no enforcement of traffic rules, you are stuck in a shitty nash equilibrium. I learnt driving in Canada, and I have tried to continue the same driving habits in India - because that is the only way I feel safe while driving. I simply can not change lanes without checking the rear-view mirrors and a shoulder-check because I am utterly terrified of what could happen if I don't. At the same time, I am also completely aware about how 99.9% of drivers on the road are operating. So, I have to be cautious that any car could try to nose their way into the road in front of me even when I have right-of-way because that's just how things work here. It is stressful and horrible.
        • oblio 5y ago
          It's probably going to change as they get more cars, more highways and better driver educations. It's probably going to take decades.
          • alex_smart 5y ago
            No change is automatic. Why will it change just because there are more cars and more highways? And where is the push for better driver education? There is none.
  • rk06 5y ago
    Side mirrors are used by vehicle in front and horns by vehicle behind. they are not the same. Moreover, large trucks and busses have a large blindspot, and can't check behind them. So, vehicles behind them, can only honk to make them aware that they are there.
    • elzbardico 5y ago
      If everybody follow simple traffic rules there's absolutely no need for the vehicle behind a truck to have the need to make the truck aware they are there. 1. Vehicle behind must keep distance, no tailgating. 2. Vehicle ahead should not change lanes before a) Making sure the marking on the road says it is permitted. b) Signaling the maneuver with directional lights. c) Checking the side mirror before actually starting the maneuver. That's basically how it works in the rest of the world. Trucks have large blind spots everywhere else, but by signalling their maneuvers in advance and with the other drivers following some simple rules, lots of places in the world (including a lot of poor countries in Latin America) get by with reserving the use of honks only for true urgent situations. edit: line-breaks
      • junoper 5y ago
        I agree and people are exeggerating the usage of horns more than it actually is. > there's absolutely no need But one use of horn that I found useful in India was to overtake on 2-lane hilly road. Now theoretically you should be able to see, may be hundred metres, ahead of you before you start the overtake or if you are not too keen to reach your destination, not overtake at all till you reach straight road with longer view. In practice though, trucks are slow moving and roads sometimes don't provide clear view of the road with twists and turns so it helps if you let the truck ahead of you know of your presence. Then truck dirver signals you with his hand when it is safe to overtake with his longer FOV. Apart from that, truck driver knowing of your presence can help him slow down his vehicle in case oncoming vehicle is cutting it too close for you to overtake the truck. Is there a better way of doing this? Probably, by just avoiding any risky overtake by road markings etc. but as I said above, that could mean following the truck for few hours in the worst case. And does that mean you honk everytime you are behind a truck? Not at all.
  • gameswithgo 5y ago
    first have to solve the problem of efficient and effective regulation of anything in a country of a billion people that doesn’t currently do that
  • Pxtl 5y ago
    The lack of side mirrors is because of hyper-narrow roads and gateways and terrifying traffic. Last time I was in India our driver kept his side mirrors folded down... and the man was capable of manoeuvring his car with micrometer-level accuracy. I can think of dozens of times I cringed expecting a scrape but of course he knew his car perfectly. There are many situations where those mirrors would have been lost if they'd been open. Manoeuvring a larger truck would require amazing driving skills, and the width of that truck would make adding side mirrors pointless - you'd lose them the first day out.
• shmde 5y ago
  Audi makes extra-durable horns for cars sold in India. https://theworld.org/stories/2012-03-26/indiainc-audi-makes-extra-durable-horns-cars-sold-india https://theworld.org/stories/2012-03-26/indiainc-audi-makes-...
• zem 5y ago
  another interesting thing is that in parts of the south it's "sound ok horn" instead.
• jzwinck 5y ago
  In Rajasthan I saw "Horn Please" everywhere, usually without "OK". And that's the title of a book about the colourful trucks of the subcontinent: http://www.hornpleaseindia.com/ http://www.hornpleaseindia.com/
• newsbinator 5y ago
  This isn’t the only “ungrammatical” expression (relative to global standard English) you will encounter in India. Could it be that some person or some company simply put this expression on their trucks (thinking it’s grammatical), and because it seemed useful other trucks followed, until it became the standard? Edit: this isn’t to be proscriptive about what’s correct/incorrect in a given country. My definition of “global standard English” is in a comment below.
  • marginalia_nu 5y ago
    Eh, sometimes you just gotta do the needful.
    • riteshpatel 5y ago
      You win the internet today! Coming from a British-born Indian, I hate that phrase so much.
  • OJFord 5y ago
    What is 'global standard English'? If you're American, consider that I (British) can find plenty that's 'wrong' with your English, judged by mine. Indian English has as much right to its own standard of correct as American English. (It's possibly a more widely spoken dialect! Depending probably on whether we say e.g. Europeans learning with heavy US film/tv influence are AmE speakers.)
    • elzbardico 5y ago
      For me who am neither American or British, Global Standard English means American English in practice. I may find British pronunciation more logical and easier to understand, I may even prefer the spelling of some words in British English, but English is the world second's language, in a remote team where half of us are not native speakers, it is easier to adopt the most influential version of the language as the canonical one.
    • AussieWog93 5y ago
      >What is 'global standard English'? I don't think it's formally defined, but there are some phrases that are widely accepted as "normal" by English speakers regardless of geography and others that are peculiar to a certain dialect. I'd be very surprised to hear someone outside of Australia say they were "fanging for a dart", for example.
• rahoulb 5y ago
  As someone who has grown up (and learnt to drive) in England - I had a moment of sudden realisation in India. For me, the horn is a warning sign - "get out of my way" or "watch out!" - only to be used in emergencies. In India, the horn means "I'm over here", to be used whenever you're near another vehicle. Which fits with the statements on the back of the lorries perfectly.
  • gpmcadam 5y ago
    In the Highway Code, letting someone know that you're there is the only proposed use for both beeping the horn and flashing your lights at another driver.
    • jkhdigital 5y ago
      Yes, it’s a bit ironic that the only reasonable use of a horn is often the least likely justification for honking by Western (or at least American) drivers. As an aside, Japanese drivers flash their lights (both headlights and taillights) as acknowledgement for letting them merge or pass—like the dual behavior of honking a horn as an expletive.
      • OJFord 5y ago
        That's common in the UK too. Rear warning lights that is, can't imagine when headlights would be in the right place for it; they're more often used by the other person in that scenario - 'after you'.
      • claviska 5y ago
        Here in the somewhat rural U.S., we tend to use the horn only when a driver isn’t paying attention when the light turns green and we’re behind them.
        • sokoloff 5y ago
          I’m in a city and over 90% of my horn usage amounts to “put down your damn phone; your light is green!”
• gattilorenz 5y ago
  It's only three examples (but Google will provide way more: https://live.staticflickr.com/7392/16171222650_b5b5e0ffc6_b.jpg https://live.staticflickr.com/7392/16171222650_b5b5e0ffc6_b....) , but in two of those the font of "ok" and "horn please" is different, suggesting that "horn ok please" is not the correct/intended interpretation, and that the Indian designers that started this trend were not big fan of Gestalt rules.
  • OJFord 5y ago
    Yeah, the article seems to painfully ignore it, but the common theme in all its theories (and the way it's painted in its photos) seems to be that 'OK' should be parsed separately, whatever its meaning.
• TazeTSchnitzel 5y ago
  “it doesn’t seem to make grammatical sense” To people familiar with standard American and British English, perhaps, but it's written by Indian English speakers for an Indian audience. Perhaps it's not ungrammatical in that language variety?
  • unmole 5y ago
    > Perhaps it's not ungrammatical in that language variety? Indian English rarely differs in grammatical constructs from other varieties. It makes no sense in Indian English either.
    • OJFord 5y ago
      As a native BrE speaker learning Hindi, what I notice most (if not entirely) is phrases/styles/devices borrowed from Hindi (and probably other Indo-Aryan languages), translated and applied in English. For example: 'I myself have noticed this' (likely translating ही emphatic particle - a BrE speaker would almost certainly not say 'myself' at all, unless responding to someone saying they had noticed something perhaps, and then it would be at the end of the sentence) similarly 'I/me only' & 'even I'. Or 'slowly-slowly' (धीरे-धीरे) and other adverbs - while BrE does use repetition for emphasis I'd say it's not nearly as common, and typically not adverbs.
      • phillc73 5y ago
        I noticed this repetition for the first time in South African English. The phrase "just now" means sort of now-ish, maybe in the next 30 minutes, maybe even tomorrow. Whereas the phrase "now now" means immediately.
        • OJFord 5y ago
          Ha, interesting. (From comments I gather you're in the UK, but for the benefit of others 'just now' here would be a very short time ago; in the past: phillc commented just now.) I've struggled to explain the nuanced variations in meaning of 'quite' in BrE to a Canadian, depending on tone and other words that really have no right to make any difference. (Think 'quite nice' vs. 'really quite nice'; 'a bit' vs. 'quite a bit'. "That makes no sense", she said. Well quite.)
• yardstick 5y ago
  Anyone with local insight on how safe/unsafe the roads are and if things like side mirrors would help? I once drove around Sicily for a few days and the main city area roads were constant traffic jams, many more car lanes than actual road lanes (faded or non-existent lane markings), and people switching lanes and turning without any notice/indicators. For all the chaos it kinda worked and people just went very slowly moving lanes, cutting across intersections, etc. Seemed like the lack of safety made everyone more cautious (although I haven’t bothered looking at road accident stats). Though I was glad to be done with it at the end of my trip!
  • ramraj07 5y ago
    You are mostly right, you can pretty much not drive vehicles in india (especially large ones) without side mirrors and everyone’s super cautious because of the rashness. Importantly, one expects rashness. You expect tho wheelers to zip around you from both sides. No one’s surprised so pretty much everyone behaves predictably. If someone starts crossing the middle of the highway you can be mostly sure that they’re going to walk at the same speed so no one actually stops, everyone adjusts their speed to miss them just so and keep going. For someone who likes thrills this is good. Someone who gets anxiety will have a very tough time. I’m gonna miss driving in Indian roads.
  • derbOac 5y ago
    Several years ago I read an article (I don't remember where) explaining and arguing for a libertarian approach to traffic rules (in the US). The argument was if you get rid of stop signs, people will tend to stop at intersections more, not less, because they don't know what to expect. I don't really agree with it but it was an article that I started reading with astonishment for how silly it was and by the end became convinced it was very reasonable even if you disagreed. Part of my skepticism about libertarian traffic control is that I was once in an area where there was a sort of legislative experiment with certain kinds of traffic lights. The legislature made the argument that they were unnecessary, the DoT pointed to studies that they improved traffic, and after awhile of this the DoT said "fine, we'll shut them off for awhile and see what happens." The result wasn't bad accidents, but it was absolutely horrible traffic congestion, and people begged the DoT to turn them back on. So they did and no one argued about it again. Now that I argue about it, the libertarian argument article was focused on safety, not traffic flow, so maybe they'd say their arguments still stand. But for me getting rid of the lights was a very negative thing.
• albert_e 5y ago
  I am pretty sure "OK" is a separate phrase - not sure about origins, could be a Quality Check OK by manufacturer or a transport authority certifying it is fit for use maybe. "Horn Please" / "Sound Horn" is the other phrase with a clear purpose and meaning. They just got mixed in due to usage. I saw/see many examples where OK is painted in a distinct font from other words.
  • benrapscallion 5y ago
    This is correct
  • qart 5y ago
    Seconded. "Horn Please" / "Sound Horn" / "Blow Horn" is the actual message. OK is often painted on a separate line. Sometimes above, sometimes below the "Horn Please" message. I don't think any of these have a meaning though. I think they are just memes (in the Dawkins sense). Also a meme on truck art: some sappy line about lost love. Also, "We Two Ours Two", which became "We Two Ours One" (usually in Hindi)
    • statictype 5y ago
      “We two ours one” always puzzled me. I assume this is about overpopulation and encouraging families to have a single child?
      • qart 5y ago
        Exactly that. There used to be government ads between TV shows about various circumstances for casually inquiring about the protagonist's family. The response would be the catchphrase "hum do, humare do" (we two, ours two). The message changed a few years later to encourage a three-member family. The protagonist would always beam when saying the catchphrase. Edit: I think I remember... the early ads were for getting condoms for free at government run hospitals and clinics. Later on, the ads were for encouraging vasectomy.
  • nsenifty 5y ago
    You can often tell if a truck is from the South or North (other than the license plates of course). Sound Horn is more common in the South whereas Blow Horn makes it likely it is from the North.
• ramraj07 5y ago
  A reminder that pretty much no lorry driver in india knows English. Vehicles here have inane phrases like this and it’s for the most part almost protocol to paint them when you get a vehicle of that class. The guy who paints Lorry backs with the company name probably asks “you want the horn ok please phrase right” and the drivers probably like yeah whatever. Not like the drivers here expect courtesy from anyone around them. If anything they expect (and return in kind) douchebaggery. It’s like playing gta. Of course you expect every passerby to steal your car and you act accordingly. Similarly auto rickshaws all over Tamil Nadu used to ubiquitously have the phrase “the age for a woman to get married is 21”. Similar bullshit reason (though in this case the govt might have mandated it at some point, memory unclear). Thankfully it’s disappeared nowadays.
  • ben_w 5y ago
    That seems very plausible, along the same lines as western tourists getting a tattoo which says “輕信游客” and thinking it’s a profound quote.
    • Aeolun 5y ago
      It is profound. Just not in the way they’re thinking.
    • setum 5y ago
      輕信游客 means ‘gullible tourists’. That’s funny.
    • chris_st 5y ago
      Tried taking a picture of this, and using iOS 15's "Live Text" to recognize the characters and translate them. It translates this phrase as "Lightly believe tourists". Anyone care to comment on whether that's an accurate translation, and "lightly believe" is an idiom meaning "gullible"?
      • monkpit 5y ago
        FYI: You can highlight text and use “translate” for a much simpler workflow on iOS.
• ghoomketu 5y ago
  Man the amount of honking is insane in India. I was visiting a relative in Patna and it's like everybody just honks for the sake on honking. I mean I thought delhi was bad, but this place just takes honking to a whole new level. It's so bad that I had to go inside a random shop to wait for my Ola as the sound levels were literally unbearable. The only place where I haven't seen so much honking is Goa. Maybe the traffic is less or people are different but that's like the only place where the roads are somewhat quiet.
  • aww_dang 5y ago
    There's a totally different regard for noise and public spaces generally. Add temple loudspeakers and other events to the list.
    • sokoloff 5y ago
      Video conferencing with our colleagues in India during Diwali is an incredible experience.
  • situationista 5y ago
    I've always observed that in India honking the horn is not just about overtaking - it's an acoustic indicator of your position, making it possible for those in front of you to plot your presence without taking their eyes off the road in front (which usually requires their absolute and undivied attention). Additionally, as the article points out, many vehicles don't possess funtional rear-view mirrors, and are therefore dependent on acoustic signals to know what's going on around them.
    • 1_player 5y ago
      > it's an acoustic indicator of your position, making it possible for those in front of you to plot your presence without taking their eyes off the road in front So you're saying Indian drivers have developed echo-location.
      • 5y ago
• yutijke 5y ago
  As a cyclist, the shortest bit of advice I can give to anyone not accustomed to busy Indian roads would be to assume that everyone around you are actively looking to murder you. At best, you are an ant that they may step on by mistake.
  • Pxtl 5y ago
    I've been to Trivandrum a couple of times - Trivandrum's roads are less lethal than most in India per-collision, but they make up for it on volume. Having visited Buenos Aires, with similarly infamous roads, I thought I knew what I was in for. No. I've never been so terrified to ride in "normal traffic" in my life. High speed mayhem with everything millimeters apart and constantly pushing for position aggressively. I cannot even begin to imagine engaging with those roads as a cyclist.
• causi 5y ago
  Whenever I visit a large city, the sound of car horns is what takes the most getting used to. It is deeply unpleasant, and happens so often it isn't even useful. I'm convinced these people are using their horns as an expression of emotion, rather than an attempt to communicate with a specific car. For someone from the suburbs it's a very alien and disturbing experience.
  • aww_dang 5y ago
    There's plenty of rationalization for noise pollution on this thread. In my view you're closer to the mark. Drivers honk at red lights, which is completely irrational. "Honk more, wait more - Mumbai" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q358fIosAsU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q358fIosAsU https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_effects_from_noise https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_effects_from_noise
• OneTimePetes 5y ago
  This goes the other way too. In china, several trucks had colourful lane-change-lights and a voice-speaker informing/warning the other vehicles that they were turning in addition to the blinker. Was pretty futuristic
• newswasboring 5y ago
  Ok, time to throw in the explanation I grew up with. I always thought it was definitive, but turns out its not. Unfortunately I have already passed on this urban legend :P. On foggy roads in north India, it is difficult to see vehicles on the road. So lights were used to indicate the status of big vehicles like trucks. Two lit bulbs on left and right corners (illuminating Horn Please) meant honk to get a pass. And to indicate you can overtake, the driver could light one bulb in the middle (illuminating a OK) to indicate its ok to take over. Eventually this system was scrapped but the tradition to paint "Horn OK please" remained. (my god the theory is falling apart in my own head as I retell it).
  • aitchnyu 5y ago
    Even today truck drivers use their right blinkers to show its ok to overtake. Atleast in Kerala. Yes, its ambiguous.
  • nodelessness 5y ago
    That's what I heard as well. Your recollection is good.
  • sva_ 5y ago
    I presumed it is because almost no trucks there have side-mirrors. Or if they have any, probably not for long.
    • alkonaut 5y ago
      Seems like a pretty infuriating state of affairs when India has a horrible rate of accidents and a government that wants to address it. Is there no talk of (for example) mandating mirrors, lights and other important equipment on all vehicles, and ticketing offenders? The next step would be overloaded trucks, (especially if the load is human).
    • jfk13 5y ago
      Or if they do have side-mirrors, the bulging load may well obscure them anyhow. https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-overloaded-truck-carrying-hay-kerala-india-43806954.html https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-overloaded-truck-carrying-...
• lngnmn2 5y ago
  It is either "Blow Horn" or "Horn Please" and it is a signal for request for overtaking. Acknowledgment is usually a sign by hand from a driver's window. Nowadays it is a blink of a turn signal. BTW, hill are drivers in India and Nepal are much more skilled and civilized, especially Nepalese.
• captn3m0 5y ago
  Additional Usage - A restaurant name in Belgium (https://www.hornokplease.space/ https://www.hornokplease.space/) - An indian TV series (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10055722/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10055722/) - A bollywood romcom (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horn_%27Ok%27_Pleassss https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horn_%27Ok%27_Pleassss) (Mentioned in the article) - A food festival in Delhi (https://hornokpleasefest.com/ https://hornokpleasefest.com/) - Multiple restaurants in India (https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=horn+ok+please+site%3Azomato.com https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=horn+ok+please+site%3A...) A few random books as well.
• DonHopkins 5y ago
  So it's not because it's an anagram for "Parolees Honk"? Or "Penal Hookers"? Or "Arsehole Knop"?
• sdfjkl 5y ago
  Different cultures have different unwritten behaviours on roads. In the mountains of Italy, drivers give a short honk before entering a turn on a serpentine road, which usually can't be seen around. If there is no responding honk, they will take the full width of the road (making the very tight turn easier and faster). Tourist drivers have to pick up on this :) In much of Europe oncoming cars flash their lights to warn others about dangers and (especially) speed traps or police checks, so they can slow down in time. Here in Lithuania, flashing your warning lights (the four orange ones on the corners of the car) means thanks, for example if you let someone merge from one of the very short onramps. I've never seen this in Germany, where onramps are however much longer. And amongst truck drivers it's pretty wide-spread to blink right to tell a following car you think it's safe for them to overtake you and blink left when you think it no longer is. At least on long roads where there are no obvious right turns. I flash them a grateful hand sign when passing their mirror.
  • rootsudo 5y ago
    The same applies in southeast Asia/China/Japan, for both. It isn't exactly ubiquitous just in Europe. Not in USA though.
    • PretzelPirate 5y ago
      Other than trucks blinking left or right, all of these are pretty common in the US. As someone who grew up in a rural area, honking before going around turns on small roads or crossing single-lane bridges you couldn’t see the other side of was something we did regularly to avoid being hit. I don’t experience this as much in larger cities though.
      • code_duck 5y ago
        My father said honking is common going around corners on small roads in the mountains in Columbia.
      • macintux 5y ago
        > As someone who grew up in a rural area, honking before going around turns on small roads or crossing single-lane bridges you couldn’t see the other side of was something we did regularly to avoid being hit. I've never found this in rural Indiana, but I wish it were common practice. I've found people often simply assume no one is coming because there are so few cars on the back roads; very nearly experienced a head-on collision approaching one curve a few years ago.
• commonalitydev 5y ago
  Wait, I think they misspelled “Porn …”
• suvo 5y ago
  My theory has been a little different. IIRC Horn and Please are written on the two sides asking the tailing vehicle to blow the Horn. And the OK comes from the OK word written on the bumper (in the middle) by the manufacturer. This was a requirement as far as back in the 80s (may be even earlier) to stamp the OK (on the lines of OK TESTED) I guess. People got habituated into reading Horn OK Please and the integrated with the culture.
  • Pxtl 5y ago
    That seems much more reasonable that the strange "on kerosene" theorised in the article.
  • jnmandal 5y ago
    This is mentioned in the article but it's strange to me because I've been in heavy truck factories in India and 80% of the vehicles are produced without a truck bed or cabin. They are simply sold frame-only. Apparently the trucking companies prefer to build their own wooden beds/bays and cabins, which is cheaper anyways. I have to assume this is also true in the past but maybe not?
    • whitesilhouette 5y ago
      The OK part is stamped on the back endmost part of the chassis itself.
• prateek_mir 5y ago
  I do not buy the "No side mirrors" argument, because what you'll also see written on the back of these trucks is "Use dipper at night", that is, do not use high beam cause the when reflected from the side mirrors, it blocks your vision.
• narag 5y ago
  Horn, OK? Please!
• Wolfenstein98k 5y ago
  God, the poor wildlife.
• dec0dedab0de 5y ago
  This was interesting, and I normally love atlas Obscura, but it seems like quite a bit of the article was lifted from this quora question that shows up early in google https://www.quora.com/Why-is-Horn-OK-Please-painted-on-the-back-of-almost-every-truck-in-India?share=1 https://www.quora.com/Why-is-Horn-OK-Please-painted-on-the-b...
• kelvin0 5y ago
  No where in the article do they even try to ask the people who own or paint these words on the vehicles? Speculation throughout and not a shred of input from any of the people actually involved (Drivers, Lettering painters, police..). Conclusion: none! We don't know and didn't ask either. Really weird article.
  • aniforprez 5y ago
    I've asked and they don't know for the most part either. It's become tradition at this point and it's not known by the drivers or the painters why. It's just cute
    • gumby 5y ago
      Most of them don’t speak English either — this is merely something that has to go on your lorry.
      • appleiigs 5y ago
        OK Please ask them in whatever language they speak.
        • deleted 5y ago
          [deleted]
        • webkike 5y ago
          Lol, I don’t think the parent was suggesting that they can’t answer because the interviewer was only asking them in English, but rather they don’t know what the English phrase means precisely most of the time
      • aatharuv 5y ago
        Not speaking English, doesn't imply they don't understand English words or phrases that have gotten into what languages they do speak.
• ryzvonusef 5y ago
  reminds me of the random "R" "A" "K" stickers on the back of taxis in Pakistan. No one is sure how or why this trend started, or what the letters signify. https://pakistantruckart.com/2010/05/01/taxi-motifs-in-islamabadrawalpindi-the-origin-of-r-a-k/ https://pakistantruckart.com/2010/05/01/taxi-motifs-in-islam...
• neerajk 5y ago
  All my life I've read it as "Horn Please, OK!"
• tectonicfury 5y ago
  My father told me the reason some years ago. As a rough sketch, it was because decades ago many highways used to be 'single lane', so if you had a truck in front of you, you needed to overtake it as you wouldn't want to be stuck tailing it the entire length of the road. He said that above the "OK" there used to be a bulb. So if someone wanted to overtake the truck, they were required to sound their vehicle's horn to signal their intent/desire to do so, that's what the "Horn Please" was for. If all was clear, the truck driver used to turn on the bulb to tell that it was "OK" to do so. Apparently, with time, the bulb went into oblivion (perhaps due to becoming redundant because of the widening of the roads) but the words remain.
  • tdeck 5y ago
    I love this explanation, and went looking for some photos of the rear of trucks in 1940s India. But I couldn't find any good ones. Is anyone able to find evidence of whether such a signal light existed?
    • d13 5y ago
      No, but I’ve heard this story repeated many times in India
• catchmeifyoucan 5y ago
  Can OK it not just mean, “it’s OK to honk”
• gumby 5y ago
  > It is unclear whether the ubiquitous sign actually contributes to drivers honking their horns more, though the government of Maharashtra certainly seems to think there is a connection. Whether the signs do or don’t contribute is irrelevant. They are ubiquitous and banning them causes discussion which calls attention to the city’s attempt to reduce the racket. And I am annoyed that, despite the title, the article does not explain the origin.
• alexwebb2 5y ago
  The immediate interpretation I have from the placement of the words is: - Directly behind me? OK, that's fine. - Passing on the left or right? Horn, please.
• 1024core 5y ago
  I didn't read the article (and from the comments here, it seems to be a waste of time), but there are 2 phrases in there: "Horn Please" and "OK"; it's not "Horn OK Please", even though it's written that way. "Horn Please" is to tell the vehicle behind that they can sound the horn if they want to pass. "OK", I think, comes from "OK Tata" (as in "OK, bye bye").
• penguin_booze 5y ago
  It's funny that, in the UK, flashing head lamps means 'you go first'. In India, it's the other way around: 'I--and only I--drive around here!'.
• jspash 5y ago
  Is this the "PC LOAD LETTER" of motor vehicles?
• SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago
  It seems fairly clear to me how it could come about. Someone writes a sign "Honking the horn at me is OK, please warn me as I don't have mirrors", which is clearly too wordy. And so it evolves over time, is shortened, newspaper headline style, via e.g. "horn is OK, please warn" to the final product. "doesn’t seem to make grammatical sense" well yes, but neither do many headlines e.g. "Diana Dead" that drop implied words such as "is" for similar reasons.
• carabiner 5y ago
  om telolet om
• davchana 5y ago
  Also, there is a vehicle company Tata, making many vehicles including trucks. Then same word is also used when we waive goodbye with hands, like Tata. Parents usually usee to say to their own kids when leaving friend's house, Ok Do Tata (means waive your arms in goodbye and say tata). Trucks also write OK TATA BYE on back of them.
• wirrbel 5y ago
  In driver's school in Germany about 2004, I learned that one _can_ use the horn to announce overtaking esp. of agr. tractors or harvesters, etc. I think I never did so but I am fairly certain if I'd dig into the law, there would still be a paragraph allowing it.
• u801e 5y ago
  I've never been to India, but I don't ever recall seeing this phrase on the back of trucks in Pakistan (even being relatively close to the border in Lahore).