Greenhorns: Frank McNally on learner drivers and impatient motorists who honk too much

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And when it did, often, we were at a traffic light with a short green, or somewhere equally in the way of impatient others. But we had L plates displayed front and back, so that…

From a pile of old newspaper cuttings recently, I dug out one about an enraged elephant attacking a car after the driver honked the horn at him.

It was in Mozambique, and the young bull elephant was one of a group blocking a road when the driver – probably a tourist – decided that blowing the horn loudly might resolve the traffic jam.

It did, in a way. First, the bull elephant reacted as many bull humans do when honked at: it honked back. Or “trumpeted”, to use the technical term for the noise elephants make.

But that was just a preliminary. Infuriated by the sound of the horn, the elephant then attacked the small car, flipping it over several times like a toy. The occupant survived somehow, bruised and shaken.

I remembered the story last week while sitting in the passenger seat of a Toyota Yaris being driven by my son as part of his preparation for a driving test.

He had a dozen or so official lessons behind him, but those were in an instructor’s vehicle, whereas this one was new to him. He struggled at first with the unfamiliar clutch, especially when trying to find the biting point between stationary and first gear.

In the process, the car cut out a lot. And when it did, often, we were at a traffic light with a short green, or somewhere equally in the way of impatient others.

But we had L plates displayed front and back, so that anyone we impeded must have known this was a learner situation.

Despite which, constantly, people honked horns. Some were long, angry honks. Others short, slightly annoyed ones. Once, an impatient driver shot past us to catch the light in a late state of orange. Even then he thought fit to add a small honk of protest to the record.

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