Two Mumbaikars design anti-honking device. It is a red button placed on the vehicle's dashboard with a frownie printed on it. Whenever the driver honks, the button starts flashing with continuous irritating beeps forcing the driver to press the red button to put it off.
Constant honking outside 35-year-old Mayur Tekchandaney’s Bandra house gave him sleepless nights.
“There are three restaurants around my home and the lane is very small, the activity goes on till 1am. Till the time the last car drives out, there’s no peace,” said Tekchandaney.
He was irritated but instead of grumbling about it, he decided to be the change and worked towards curbing the annoying sound.
This gave birth to Bleep, an anti-honking device, that he designed with his associate Anand Damani, 35.
In July last year, Tekchandaney and Damani of Briefcase, a branding company, racked their brains and jointly start designing something that manipulates honking habits. “We work for three kinds of verticals – consumer, organisational and social. ‘Bleep’ is our first project in the social segment,” said Damani.
Once their concept for Bleep was clear they roped in Dhruv Chaudhry from Indent to develop the prototype. A red button was placed on a car’s dashboard with a frownie printed on it. Whenever the driver honks, the button starts flashing with irritating beeps. The driver is forced to switch off the red button.
The system was installed in manual (Maruti Swift) and automatic (Honda City) geared cars and study was conducted between October 2012 and March 2013.
The study surveyed 30 people including men, women and chauffeurs. They drove for a total of over 3,800 kms. Each of them drove for four days — two without Bleep and two with it. Drivers were not told about the experiment.
The data was collated and compared on the basis of honks per kilometre. The result with ‘Bleep’ on was – manual geared car witnessed a reduction by 62% whereas the automatic gear vehicle had 60% less horn usage. “There are people who have the habit of honking 31 times per kilometre. But no one will admit that they honk as it a sub-conscious habit,” said Damani.
The team has filed for a patent and is approaching government agencies like transport department, traffic police and pollution control board to pitch the idea and get it included in the government policies. Their plan is to pitch Bleep to car manufacturers, who can market their vehicles with this eco-friendly feature. The other target group is fleet taxis and hospitality industry.
Horn not ok
Anand Damani points to the red button, Bleep, an anti-honking device that he designed with Mayur Tekchandaney.
Bleep is a red button placed on the vehicle’s dashboard with a frownie printed on it. Whenever the driver honks, the button starts flashing with continuous irritating beeps.
The driver is forced to press the red button to put it off.
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