Years ago my employer purchased a new crane truck for me to operate; it was equipped with the customary duel air horns on top of the cab above the driver’s seat. A cord in the cab was connected to some linkage that passed through a rubber seal in the roof to where it then connected to a valve assembly on the air horns.
On what may have been the first or second day of driving it; I was pulling out onto a street near an intersection just as the traffic light changed to red for the direction I was intending to go (right turn). There was about two car lengths of empty traffic lane extending from the driveway where I was waiting, to the stop line at the intersection. There was only one car that was immediately approaching from the left, but a block or so down the way was what looked like an endless string of cars. I anxiously waited for the young woman driving that first car to drive past me so I could pull in behind her before all those other cars came. (This town is known for how the cars and the traffic lights seem timed to conspire against you. And if someone would take up the left turn lane at the light I would not be able to make the turn into the street because the truck is so long, it was go now or wait much later in this regard)
The young woman, who looked to be in her early twenties, stopped an entire car length short of the intersection, just past the front of my truck, so close I could not even put my bumper into the street. I put my hand in the center of the steering wheel where a padded horn button was located and lightly pressed down . . . nothing happened!, the smaller “car” like horn, that my previous trucks had been equipped with, was either malfunctioning or deleted by this manufacturer. As I looked back down the street at those fast approaching cars I reached for the air horn, I had only used the air horn in this truck once but I knew from using the ones on my old trucks that all I had to do was just barely pull the cord to let a little bit of air into the horns to make a small little squeak so as to get the young woman’s attention.
Well, the air pushed open the valve and let out a blast so loud it caused the poor girl to jump in her seat as she quickly hit the gas to get out of the way. Worst yet, the horn would not shut off, I let the cord go completely slack at the first squawk but the valve stayed open, and as I pulled in behind her car I continued to try to release the valve only to make it louder!!!
By now, she was sitting at the light pleading through her rear view mirror to the deranged psycho truck driver not to kill her. I could only continue to frantically yank on the cord while cussing at it in the most colorful display of language and what probably appeared to her as the angry shaking of my raised left fist. The light finally changed and we preceded slowly ahead, the horn shrieking its monotone death wail, and her, now turning her upper body to directly plead for her life between her car’s headrests while I continued my assault on the horn cord.
We traversed in front of a gas station with probably a dozen people standing motionless as the spectacle slowly passed and then stopped behind the cars waiting for the next signal to change. By this time the young lady was so terrified I’m sure she thought about abandoning her car and making a break for safety. But the traffic began to move again and we continued on with her pleading for her life and me yelling and shaking my fist. When I finally reached the next intersection I couldn’t take her terrified gaze and the angry stares of the bystanders anymore and made a left turn against the signal to get to a large parking lot where I could finally disarm this WMD.