Occasionally when you’re driving, you’ll make a mistake and perhaps need to adjust and it can create some awkward situations. Like today, my dad ended up in the wrong lane to go straight instead of turn at a light. He had to cut in line to make sure we could go the right way. It’d be nice if we could communicate “sorry, I screwed up. Excuse me. I just need to slip in there.”
Right now all we have for inter car communication is the horn, which has kind of an aggressive implication to it. This is for trying to de-escalate potential road rage.
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.