Listen closely to what you don't hear in Carroll, Iowa
Most of us just can’t do it.
Our hands are as likely to fall on the car horn as a wild- green-eyed animal rights activist’s forefinger is to tug on the trigger of a gun trained at a deer or pheasant.
In Carroll, Iowa rarely do you hear the honk of the car horn. Even when as drivers we deserve them.
“I would say that it does happen, but very infrequently,” former Carroll Police Chief Jeff Cayler told me. “Usually it’s done to avoid a collision.”
In our nation’s urban reaches, horns are hit so often that they become part of cacophony of frustration and frenzy. A second too slow on the accelerator as the light turns green and, presto, you’re hit with a honk.
But here, that person who is a little slow at the light, or even a smidge too close on the lane change, may very well be the guy you’re sitting next to in Rotary 10 minutes later, or your daughter’s teacher or the assistant manager at Hy-Vee who you are approaching about buying ads in the newspaper. Thankfully, I didn’t honk at the latter person a few years ago. A nod and a smile — and yes, an ad sale.
The other night, on a generously curved stretch south of Main Street, near my house in Carroll, and a park, I instinctively tapped the brakes and slowed to 10 mph, well under the 25 mph speed limit, as I sensed there were bikes and kids near. At the far reach of the curve, a child on a bike darted in front of my car, and because of my premonition, I stopped just in time — about an inch from the wide-eyed kid who had not bothered to look even one way before entering the roadway -- much less both ways.
I honked. And I honked again. It almost shocked me as I had not heard the horn in so long. My 2013 Lincoln MKS has 285,000 miles on it, but I couldn’t pick out the horn sound from an audio lineup, such is the infrequency with which I use it.
The kids' parents, whom I know, approached me gratefully from their front yard, and thanked me for driving with abundant caution on the street. Then I apologized, yes apologized, for honking.
They told me the kid deserved it, that they were glad I hit the horn, to send a message he hopefully won't forget. Still, I felt bad. Still do, sort of. We just don't use car horns around here.
In most respects the absence of the horns is nice.
But I asked Cayler, the old police chief: Is this, well, a problem? Do accidents happen because people are reluctant to honk? Do we sometimes Carroll-nice (or outside of here in other rural areas, Iowa-nice) our way into accidents?
The short answer: no.
Drivers will honk to avoid accidents but once a problem is averted, local motorists often won’t hit a horn out of justified anger or frustration with someone who violated the rules of the road.
“Carroll, I think, is kind of a statistical anomaly,” Cayler said. “We’re just different in a different kind of way. People who have lived in Carroll all of their lives or most of their lives seem to think it is this way everywhere. It just isn’t.”
One other bit of nastiness we are low on in Carroll is road rage, situations in which a motorist, with a real or perceived gripe, hops out of the car and starts a physical confrontation.
All of this said, there are places in Carroll where I have my horn on the ready and my foot near the brake. There are some streets or neighborhoods — Southgate Road in Rolling Hills or High Ridge Drive in eastern Carroll, for example — that are dense with kids.
Some of them are bouncing balls that appear headed for the streets. Others are on bikes on driveways sloped to the street. As I experienced, in one’s minds-eye, you can picture distracted or daydreaming bicyclists darting in front of you.
We should be firing warning horns in their direction.
Most of the honking that goes on in cities (I heard it for four years outside of my apartment in Washington, D.C.) is done not out of necessity, but frustration and with the knowledge that the person on the receiving end is someone the driver doesn’t know and won’t see again.
On one drive from Des Moines to Carroll, during my college years, a friend from New York City joined me. Shortly after we hit Perry for the fully rural stretch home through Rippey and Jefferson and into Carroll, I began waving, a forefinger up from the wheel or a wave from the window, at most of the passing cars. The drivers reciprocated. All of them.
"Do you know everyone on the road? Are we close to your house?" my friend said.
"No, we are a ways from Carroll," I said. "We just wave at everybody."
For my money, I’ll take the daily friendly waves from passing motorists in Carroll over the rush-hour horn hammering on The Beltway in Washington.
Douglas Burns, a fourth-generation Iowa journalist, is a founding member of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative
This post dredged up a memory I hadn't thought about in years! When I was about seven I was riding my bike in our quiet suburban neighborhood. I rode toward my parents (who were standing on the other side of the street) without looking both ways first, and a car coming around the corner honked before stopping on a dime. It certainly made an impression on me and I don't think I ever did anything that stupid on a bike again.
👍Iowa nice!