Land of the Honkers

Jakartans love to honk. Yes we do. We love the blaring sound of our car's horn.
Don't want to admit it? Here's the proof.

For the past two weeks we have done a little research to answer this one question:
On our way from home to work everyday, how many times on average do we hear people honking?

So we equipped ourselves with a counter, and when we drove from home to work, we clicked the counter whenever we heard vehicle's horn blared.
We did it for 2 weeks.

The result is quite astounding:

On average, everyday, from home to work, we hear people blaring their vehicle's horn 48 times.
Our record high? There is one particularly bad day of which one of our colleagues logged 152.

48 times! Everyday, from home to work. Goodness. We never thought Jakarta is that noisy!
No wonder we are grumpy when we arrive at work.

So here's what we decided to do. We came up with a pact among us. We will not use our car horn unless it is absolutely necessary.
We will try to keep it quiet. We'll consider it our contribution to a quieter Jakarta. To a more livable Jakarta. A more civilized Jakarta.

So no matter how annoying the other motorists are, we will not honk. We will be very quiet about it.

That, however, does not mean we won't give a finger.