---
title: "India’s Devious New Traffic Lights Stay Red When Drivers Honk"
description: "To stop a constant barrage of car honking noise, the Mumbai police installed horn noise detectors at traffic lights. The more noise, the longer the red."
date: "2020-02-07"
modified: "2020-02-07"
authors:
  - name: "Victor Tangermann"
    job_title: "Senior Editor"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor"
url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/indias-devious-traffic-lights-stay-red-drivers-honk"
categories:
  - "Advanced Transport"
tags:
  - "india"
  - "the digest"
  - "traffic"
  - "traffic lights"
---

# India’s Devious New Traffic Lights Stay Red When Drivers Honk

![To stop a constant barrage of car honking noise, the Mumbai police installed horn noise detectors at traffic lights. The more noise, the longer the red.](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/indias-devious-traffic-lights-stay-red-drivers-honk-1.jpg>)
*\<em\>Image: zoxcleb/Victor Tangermann\</em\>*

## 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](<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/04/world/asia/mumbai-horn-honking.html>). 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](<https://www.industrialnoisecontrol.com/comparative-noise-examples.htm>) 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](<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/04/world/asia/mumbai-horn-honking.html>) \[*The New York Times*\]

**More on India:** *[India Wants to Send This Legless Humanoid Robot Into Space](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/india-legless-humanoid-robot-space>)*

## Author
I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida.

### Author social links  
[Bluesky](<https://bsky.app/profile/vtanger.bsky.social>)