To spend more than five minutes in a vehicle in Guyana is to realise that drivers here have contracted hornitis. Horn blowing here is like an epidemic. Visiting Guyana, almost every year, I was astounded at the level of it; it appeared excessive, repetitive and mindless. Drivers seemed to be blowing their horns on a whim. It was ridiculous.
Living here permanently again, and driving the roads myself, I have changed my view completely. Now, my take on life in Guyana is that two things are absolutely essential for survival here: a strong sense of humour, and a properly functioning car horn.
To operate an automobile here is to quickly realise that the chaotic conditions of driving in Guyana mean that a horn on your car or truck is not just an accessory; apart from the steering wheel, it is the most important device, by far, in the vehicle.
Further, and this is my essential point, Guyanese drivers are actually using their horns in, generally, a constructive manner, and the ensuing hornitis is not mindless at all; it is a sheer necessity for survival on GT’s roads.
Certainly there are those who overdo it, like some mini-bus operators (in every field, some jackasses are grazing), but all in all, you need a horn in this town; it is vital.
To step back and take a look is to see that Guyana, and Georgetown in particular, seems to have been designed before the invention of the automobile. Most roads are unmarked (what centre line?), sidewalks are rare, and there is only rudimentary enforcement of traffic laws. We park anywhere we can find open spaces. Stop signs are a novelty, and most one-way streets are not so marked. Overtaking is seen as a civil right that supersedes two solid lines and blind corners. I could go on with this, but you know the scene.
In those conditions, the horn is your saviour. Simply put, this device, designed as an attention getter, has been morphed by Guyanese drivers into a sometimes subtle, sometimes harsh, but always efficient means of communication in traffic.
There are occasions when the horn message is a polite warning. With few road markings, or defined road shoulders, a driver overtaking will often produce a short toot, delivered with a flick of the wrist, which serves as a polite “Look out, bro. I’m passing.” That same friendly alert is in play when a vehicle is waiting at a junction; cars on the main road will also deliver the short toot, meaning “Don’t come out yet, mister.” Motor cyclists do the same thing; the friendly little beep saying, “Stay right deh, buddy. I coming through.” The communication is simple, clear and almost benign; imagine the accident horror in town if we didn’t have these constant warning toots taking place.
Pedestrians and cyclists, too, dealing with the narrow roadways, are warned in the same way by motorists not to transgress. There, the short toot means, “Keep your tail in the corner, yeh.” Guyanese pedestrians have learned to walk a dead straight line at road’s edge, with gentle reminders from motorists. Again, effective communication via horn.
At stop lights, as lights turn green, the horn message has several stages: The first is a couple of short, tense bursts – “Mister! Drive!”. In stage two, coming precisely two seconds later, the horn sounds are longer and louder – “Wha’ happen? Yuh blin’ or wha’?”. Two seconds after that comes the horn eruption stage, where all hell breaks loose. In that last stage, the driver’s hand is jammed on the horn, arm fully extended, teeth bared, and everybody in the line is dishing it out. – “YUH JACKASS! MOVE YUH BACKSIDE OUT DE WAY! Take a look in your rear-view mirror; it’s a hornitis frenzy.
In the midst of all this, the mini-bus drivers have taken horn messages to an even more sophisticated level. To the short single beep, used by all, the bus drivers have added the 2-beep sound, in triplicate (beedeep; beedeep; beedeep) – “I’m passing you on the inside; stay cool.” – as well as the one-beep, clocklike sounds (beep; beep; beep; beep; beep; beep) used to recruit passengers – “Darling, yuh ridin’ or yuh stayin’? ” The one to really watch out for with the minibus is that frenetic rolling horn sound they reproduce, sounding like a merry-go-round – “Look buddy! Ah late bad, an’ ah borin’, so yuh betta pull wan side!”
If you’re still not persuaded that horns are necessary here, come with me to Carifesta Avenue at 5pm in the week. Like most roads in Guyana, Carifesta Avenue is normally one lane going west and one east. With the congestion of rush hour, however, the motorists heading east will suddenly sometimes simply re-design the asphalt into a 3-lane roadway east-bound: one lane is the existing east-bound shoulder, the second lane is the normal east-bound one, and the third east-bound lane is what was previously the west-bound lane. The final piece in this completely improvised arrangement (there is not a policeman in sight) is that cars going west simply slide to the left and make the shoulder the temporary west-bound lane. It works because people recognise what is going on and adjust, but brethren, to operate in that melee without frequent horn communication (not to mention iron nerves) would be madness – you try it, not me.
Earlier, I mentioned the cacophony when the traffic lights change from red to green and motorists are slow to move; the hornitis eruption is instantaneous. I referred to it as mindless, and in some measure it is. Two days ago, I am sitting at the traffic light at Sheriff Street and Railway Road. The driver in front of me hesitates for two beats on the green, and – may the Lord forgive me – before I knew what I was doing I let him have two short blasts on the horn. The lady sitting beside me in the car says, “Okay…you’re now driving like a Guyanese.”
In that instant I realised what had happened to me; one year after moving back to Guyana, I had contracted hornitis.
