I have an appointment on Tuesday to get my Hornblasters Conductor’s Special 240 installed on my car but I’m coming to the realization that I might eventually get caught by police using this. I heard some stories about people getting tickets but I was just wondering if you had your train horns for a long time and didn’t get caught yet. Not sure if those people were just unlucky or does everyone get caught once? Sorry if this is in the wrong section for the Forum.
I’ve had my k5 setup about a year ish now and no tickets/court dates
I guess it boils down to how you’re going to use them
if you blast everything that has a pulse then yeah more likely to get busted than if yer sensible with them
Some states have stricter laws than others and tickets are probably more common in highly populated areas.
Doesn’t matter if you have a loud horn, a loud car, a loud stereo etc. The same principles basically apply - use things sensibly and within reason then you shouldn’t get any into any trouble. If you go around purposely to upset others then be prepared for complaints, fine or worse.
With train horns you basically fall into one of two camps:
A) Those who will ALWAYS think you’re crazy and should essentially be banned or locked up for owning them.
B) Those who love them; Either because they like collecting them, or like the sound - right through to those that love to shock or scare people. There’s no love lost between those two camps by the way.
Regardless of your best intentions, whether it’s the police or the public, you will come across people who fall into Camp-A. The amount of dislike/hatred you receive will largely depend on how you behave in those situations.
Anyway… not sure it helps, but that’s my take on it.
There is a) responsible honking and b) mischief.
a) is a warranted use in traffic/situation, runby out in the boonies, etc
b) is pretty much anything else.
I can’t imagine a cop handing you a ticket if he saw you use your horn to avoid an accident. If you’re going to be mischievous, watch out for cops. If you can’t control yourself, well…
What DBO said is so true. Just because a hello honk to you buddies is fun, you never know who else is around. Be safe.
Thank you for the replies! Also if I keep them, What maintenance do I do with that train horn kit? I know every once in a while I should drain the tank. How often?
Drainage frequency depends on climate, system volume, and usage. If you don’t use your horns much you won’t be pumping hot compressed air into the lines much, which results in less new air in the system to condense and introduce water. Similarly, if your system has a small tank (5 or less gallons at 150psi or less) there’s just not a lot of air in it to begin with, so when you change that air you don’t add much. But if you live in a really moist climate it changes things … possibly quite a lot (depending on the usual humidity where you are).
IMHO the best approach for maintenance is to over maintain by draining the system regularly once a month until you get a feel for whether you’re getting a lot of condensation, a little, or something in-between … and then tweak your drainage schedule based on what you learn over time.
So I decided to get it installed! Here’s the Forum!
https://www.trainhornforums.com/showthread.php?t=6780
Thank you for your replies everyone!
Now the real challenge is staying out of trouble.
Ya my rule would be not to honk it if it’s late. Most likely if it’s dark. I made an exception tonight because I drove past a bar and seen my friend working so I honked it and everyone got scared! Other than that, I’ll just honk it when I see friends when driving past them. I always try to look to make sure that there’s no cops around me. I try my best! The other day, my doctor said she wanted to hear my Train Horn and she’s in Wailuku! Wailuku is known to be very strict with cops driving around. So as I’m leaving my doctor’s appointment, I decide not to honk it just in case there’s a cop around the corner and when I get to the end of the street, I see an under cover police car pull on that same road I was on! I’m so lucky that I didn’t honk it! Knock on wood!
So yeah. I’m mainly using it for when I drive past my work place to say hello or if someone cuts me off (happened 1 time when I had these horns) and also if the person is just sitting there during a green light (Also happened 1 time already since I got the Train Horns).