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84 year old Grandmother finded for Honking horn at driver
Sydney grandmother fined for honking horn at car that pulled in front - cop calls it 'road rage'
A grandmother was left humming after being slapped with a hefty fine for honking her horn at a car that pulled in front of her - an action a police officer deemed road rage.
Alma Smith, 85, was shocked to discover that she, not the other driver, was the one fined over the incident in June, for using the horn 'excessively'.
She was driving to work at Myer in the southwestern Sydney suburb of Roselands, when she had the near miss on Belmore Road at Riverwood.
'There was cars parked and this guy just (pulled out) in front of me. I thought I was going to collide with him so I applied the brakes and the horn,' she told 9News.
Under NSW law you can only honk if you need to warn other road users about the position of your car or get animals off the road. But police allege Ms Smith beeped for too long.
Her son Warwick Smith said there was a police officer behind his mum counting the length of her horn honk.
According to Mr Smith, three seconds is OK, but four seconds isn't.
To make matters worse, the officer gave her a $352 fine.
'He said I had used the horn excessively, unnecessarily and that's like road rage.'
Ms Smith, who has been driving for more than 60 years, went silent with shock and then asked the officer if they were serious.
'I couldn't believe it. Is this a joke? Haven't they got better things to do,' she said.
In NSW, you cannot beep your car horn to say hello, out of annoyance or frustration or to get someone moving when a traffic light goes green.
Ms Smith has vowed to fight the offence and will have her day in court next May, almost a year after the incident.
Then what is the horn for ???
She was in danger and needed to honk
I know how bad this road is that she was travelling on and cars are forever pulling out without looking, it's quite industrial.
