India's Devious New Traffic Lights Stay Red When Drivers Honk

"Honk more, wait more."

The Punishing Signal

To stop a constant barrage of car honking, the Mumbai police in India have installed noise detectors at traffic lights, The New York Times reports. The more honking, the longer the light stays red.

Their evocative name for the system: "The Punishing Signal."

https://twitter.com/MumbaiPolice/status/1223090017397960705

Mute Button

The cops also installed cryptic signs on intersections with the new system that read "Honk More, Wait More."

A tongue-in-cheek video uploaded by Mumbai police last week has gone viral with several million views.

"Maybe they think that by honking, they can make the signal turn green faster?" the narrator of the video says.

Traffic Attack

The devious devices work by measuring the decibels at a given intersection. As soon as it detects that cars are honking at 85 decibels or higher — about the equivalent of a freight train passing from 15 feet — the red light stays on longer.

"This is what we wanted to tell them: Honking or making noise doesn’t move the traffic,” Mumbai police spokesman Pranaya Ashok told the Times. "The traffic takes its own time to move, O.K.?"

READ MORE: Mumbai Police Play a Trick on Honking Drivers [The New York Times]

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