"A bad driver never misses their exit"

Sometimes you make a mistake and miss your exit or end up in the wrong lane. That's on you. Re-route, follow the lane you're in, take the next safe turn/exit/lane change to get back on track; you don't just cut in line, forcing others to correct for your own mistakes. That's a great way to create unsafe conditions, end up in accidents, and hurt people. It's not just about peoples ego/anger, it's genuinely dangerous.

Your father doesn't need a 'sorry' button, he needs to correct his poor driving behaviour and not endanger himself, you, or others on the road.

You deserve to be able to retire after someone from Shark Tank takes your idea and makes it mandatory on all vehicles.

It's not the horn itself but how it's used.

Long blast = angry Two quick bips = not angry One bip = I'm just letting you know I'm here

Two long blasts - The El Dude Brothers

“sorry, I screwed up. Excuse me. I just need to slip in there.”

My problem with this is that the screw up is the slipping in. In other words, accidents happen and there's nothing wrong with apologizing for something you already did by accident -- but in this case, it's preemptively apologizing for doing something on purpose that you know is wrong, cutting someone off because you already were late/past where you need to go.

If you cut someone off because you didn't see them and you thought it was safe, that's a good reason to apologize. Mistakes happen and it's good to take accountability.

If you're seeing that it's not really safe and the other guy is going to have to slam his brakes because you're going to consciously on purpose cut him off, then yeah you're just being a shitty driver on purpose. Apologizing for something you knowingly did on purpose and will do again? That just makes you a liar on top of that.

Whatever sound it makes would have to be very distinctive and not leave any room for interpretation.

Warning lights. In France people do a short blink with the hazard lights to say thank you or sorry.

As humans usually want to express quite complex things but have already developed a tried and tested method to communicate a lot of these complex things, I'd say we just enable voice for inter car communication by equipping every car with a huge megaphone on its roof that can be accessed from any seat inside.

Or your dad could accept that he's going to travel a tiny bit further than he originally intended, and reroute with a u-turn, or a block circle, or a parking lot turn, or something similar. No invasive lane change. No need to apologise for an invasive lane change. No need for a special horn to communicate an apology for an invasive lane change. You don't need to apologise for something you don't make into someone else's problem.

There's already a gesture 🖐️ and there's blinking your hazard lights.

*sad trombone noises"

Various horn sounds is a good idea. I always wanted text messaging displayed on the vehicle.

Three or four blinks of the four-way / hazard lights is commonly used as "Thank you". That would be appropriate for someone who let you in.

As a league of legends player, there is no signal that can universally be accepted to mean a specific thing. It would be abused by bad actors.

That being said, making a wrong turn is more acceptable than being an asshole or endangering other's lives or property. Pay more attention or accept the consequences.

If you actually want to be polite for real, the solution is to go around the block and do it the right way. A "sorry" horn won't fix the notion of feeling entitled to make sudden unexpected (i.e. dangerous) moves in traffic to avoid inconveniencing yourself after you fuck up. At best it'll just make you (unjustifiably) feel like a better person.

I've thought about this too. I once heard a theory that road rage is a result of the fact that cars prevent people from observing the subtle facial and body signals we use to communicate contrition or distress that are visible when you annoy someone under routine circumstances.

If you accidentally cut a line in a buffet or turn a corner and almost run into someone while walking, they can see you as a person and identify that you feel embarrassed. But without that, you just see a big truck or a fancy sedan and you write a whole narrative in your head about the worst fucking person in the whole world going around being an unapologetic asshole.

Personally, I'd rather just get people out of cars more than develop new technologies, but I've often wished I had a megaphone so I could tell someone I was sorry for driving badly.

Happened to me yesterday, actually, that a large truck stopped suddenly at the end of an intersection and I, behind them, had to stop in the intersection without knowing when or if we'd move again since I couldn't see anything ahead of the truck. A good seven or so seconds later and the light turned yellow so I had to cut to the right (mostly parking) lane to avoid gridlock. Went ahead a few cars to an opening to get back into a driving lane, cutting ahead a little.

My "I'm sorry" horn is really just my shy hand wave out my window though. I don't use AC nor have tinted windows so I think they generally see how I feel, I think. More often than not, it's a "thank you" horn though, as people often have to let me out of my own driveway since I live on a major street and there is rarely a time there aren't cars idling outside waiting for a light.

In situations where you're basically saying, "thank you for being a better driver than me," opening your window and putting out your hand with all fingers fully spread is the correct gesture. For me at least, it dissipates my anger when someone has cut me off, because at least they're acknowledging and apologizing. I usually assume the reason is because shitty GPS gave them impossible directions.

We need a "great job" horn.

I flash my hazard lights a few times.

How-to by Mark Rober:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lv8wqnk_TsA

It's not very detailed in the video, but gives a good idea on how to get it done.

Yeah if only there was some way to signal "I want to go right" or "I want to go left" smh my head

I'd love a 2nd quieter & apologetic horn in my car. When driving electric behind pedestrians it often takes them some time to realize that there is a car driving behind them, and I don't want to use my regular horn to ask them to let me pass.

I always thought you could do like a few different things on a screen running under the windshield or something. Even those analog card flip ones have been around since at least the 80s. Who knows though, it could increase road rage or something. What did they call it on pimp my ride, hatervision?

Is this finally the day I get to trot out my recollection of the "Hey Horn" commercials from the early aughts?

This was, alas, a spoof. But the idea was there.