Hooting as you go round corners - outside our house

I honk.

People should be slowing right down AND hooting to let other road users know they are there.

It is not 'in the Highway Code' as such. The specific advice on blind bends in the Highway Code is to be prepared, reduce your speed and be able to stop in the distance you can see. It does not say sound your horn.

Two vehicles observing the above rules would safely pass on a blind bend without the use of their horns. However, dangerous driving is routine on UK country roads. For that reason, Rule 147 implies that drivers can use Rule 112 and sound their horn to warn of their presence.

I’m presuming they specifically mentioned horses in their search.

The lie is halfway round the world before the truth has got his boots on.

This is actually the most useful post on this thread because it reminds us that AI SEARCH ANSWERS ARE NOT TO BE TRUSTED.

The Google AI answer tells you not to sound the horn, but had you Googled the actual Highway Code you would read that you should sound your horn.

Please remember that your human ability to sift information is better than AI. It is worse than regular search because it often comes up with the wrong answers

It’s to let other road users aware of your oncoming presence, especially if it’s a narrow road.

It’s in the Highway Code.

There aren't any roads without blind corners round here.

For the reasons the poster quoted.

There would be constant beeping, driving us all mad.

There are far more cars on the roads than there used to be.

In addition, if people have their windows up and their music on, THEY WON'T HEAR YOU BEEPING ANYWAY! Thus your sense of security that you have warned oncoming drivers would be fatally misplaced....

Beeping doesn't work. Everyone approaching a blind bend as if there is a stray cow, a child on a bicycle or a massive combine harvester on the other side of it does, however.

I live semi rural and toot as well as slowing down.

Not to tell people to get out my way, but to inform them of my presence because if I cannot see around the corner, presumably they cannot see me either.

It’s good practice.

As others have said - you can see lights in the dark so no issue then.

There should be greater use of street mirrors IMO.

I frequently cross a similar single-track hump-backed bridge with zero visibility (less than a car's length on the brow). Nobody hoots. It's a quiet-ish road, so I encounter another car on about one in three crossings. Everybody slows down, and one will reverse a few yards and give way. For example if there's a tractor and a car, the car will give way.

When it's a very narrow lane, with high hedges, I usually drive slowly with my window down to listen for approaching vehicles, but I still give a short toot on approaching a blind bend, just to alert on coming vehicles.
Listening for cars doesn't really work for electric cars though....

I beep ahead of blind corners. I slow down too.

as a child there was a lane that the drivers used to hoot going round the corner
it was to warn other cars .

Why would anyone ride a horse on a road they know has a blind corner? Why are they willing to risk their horse (or them), getting injured?

I don't know, I am neither a social anthropologist nor a historian of the motor vehicle. I just remember people doing it when I was young but thankfully virtually never experience people doing it now.

@ElaineParrish

in India you hoot as you pass lorries, it’s very noisy! Lorries have please sound horn painted onto them.

british roads are quiet, ordered when th very safe driving compared to most of the world

Why would it 'die out as a practice'

Did the roads lose their bends?

To warn others you are approaching I do it tbh

If there is no central line because it’s so narrow then it’s a safety thing - on motorcycles we do it for safety anywhere the driver in the opposite direction would hit us. (Dh has been knocked off in this scenario by a van going way too fast on a blind bend)

You have my sympathy OP. I remember hooting-round-corners being a thing when I was growing up as I lived in the sticks near a dodgy corner myself. It was a minority pursuit even then, though, and tbh I thought it had basically (and rightly) died out as a practice. I drive along tight, winding lanes on a daily basis and I can't remember the last time I heard anybody do it, which is just as well as if everybody round here was a Highway Code-quoting, horn-tooting spod it would be bloody awful racket. Despite it not being a thing round these parts my local roads are not a mass of mangled wreckage, so I agree with the MNer above who said that it's a bloody stupid practice and that while it may be in the HC it shouldn't be.

Its literally what you're meant to do. I was taught it in advanced driving. Just a quick peep, when driving slowly, to warn anyone the other side.

Yes its common sense to do this, courtesy and safety

I would never buy a house on a corner in any case, not just in the countryside

Why did you OP?

Yes that would be helpful for a horse rider the other side of the blind bend as it alerts us to the danger so we can hold back & not meet the vehicle head on on a blind bend.
The same goes for a cyclist using a bell or calling out. Yes a car horn can spook a horse & you should avoid using it around horses if possible but a blind bend on a rural road would be an exception.

Keep it a short toot not a big blast & slow right down (and be prepared to stop if you do see a horse)

Could you get one of those convex mirrors installed so that it isn't a blind corner?

You could get a sign made. A standard triangle with a red border showing a black icon of a bed with someone asleep in it (z z z) and the words "please don't hoot" underneath. However that would be unreasonable without first providing the convex mirror.