Grass Valley, CA — An area woman admitted on Thursday that she honks her horn as she travels around Grass Valley’s Roundabout in her 1999 forest green Cherokee Sport to warn other drivers not to enter in front of her.
“I just toot my horn as I drive around,” said Jenny Davids from her Brighton Street home, “and I let other drivers know that I’m coming around and not to get in front of me.”
Roundabouts, or circular junctions, are circular intersections or junctions where road traffic flows almost continuously in one direction around a central island. Under many traffic conditions, a roundabout operates with a minor delay than signalized or all-way stop approaches. According to the California Department of Motor Vehicles, honking one’s horn should only occur:
- When necessary, to avoid collisions.
- To try to get “eye contact” with other drivers. For example, you may tap your horn to alert another driver who might turn in front of you and cause a collision.
- On narrow mountain roads, you cannot see at least 200 feet ahead of your vehicle.
According to sources at the scene, Ms. Davids seemed to grip her steering wheel tightly and was leaning into it as she made her way from the Main Street egress to the Main Street ingress Thursday. Witnesses said she appeared to be very anxious.
I was sitting there waiting for my turn on Idaho-Maryland [road],” said Shep “the Ship” Walkins from his North San Juan home, “when this lady comes driving around and starts honking at me for no good reason. So this is another reason I don’t like coming down to the city.”
Not everyone disagreed with Ms. Davids’s proactive and arguably illegal horn tactics. Some celebrated them.
“I do not like this circle traffic thing they have in Grass Valley,” said an angry Ms. Shilling. “They seem disorderly, and people drive too fast around them.”
Friends of Ms. Davids, speaking anonymously, said that she also “proactively” honks her horn when driving on our rural highways to, in her words, “warn the deer that she is coming to avoid hitting them.”
