"Your horn works, now try your lights!"

My grandad used to always say that whenever someone honked their car horn. I always found it quite humorous.

However, in the t.v. news business, car horns are a major nuisance. For reasons that I've never quite understood, people like to honk their horns when they see a news crew along the side of the road. (This also applies to loud exhaust systems...."Let's rev our engine just because it's fun!")

I guess people think that honking lets them "connect" with us on a certain level, that they become part of the story. But what honking does, for the most part, is screw up a perfectly good sound bite, or even worse, a live shot. We could be interviewing a mother who lost her daughter in a drunk driving wreck at that spot, the tears are flowing, emotions are strong, and along comes some "person" and thinks "there's a news crew...let's honk!" Talk about ruining the moment. Or we could be doing a live shot, which, of course, is live, about the dangers of unsafe driving, alcohol, etc., and people driving by think that it's "cute" to honk. Ruins the shot.

I seriously doubt that the "honkers" are going to go home, turn on the news, and say, "hey, that was me honking!"

Overall, people in this part of the world are quite pleasant to be with. Just remember, the most courteous thing you could do is let us do our jobs, without worrying about somebody driving by and honking every 10 seconds. Maybe honkers expect us to turn around and wave with a smile. Usually, though, our work has just been rudely interrupted, so expect the cold shoulder.