Is honking horn free speech? High court asked to decide

By: John Fritz
USA Today

WASHINGTON - Susan Porter remembers the shock she felt when the sheriff's deputy finally explained why he pulled her over.
..... "He said, 'illegal use of horn; and gave me the ticket," the 69-year-old Californian recalled.
..... "I said, "there's a law for that?' "
..... Porter had been driving by a rally outside her congressman's office in 2017 and her honks were a sign of support - in the same way drivers beep for a political candidate waving a sign at rush hour, or to celebrate a sports team after a game.
..... Porter has challenged a California traffic law that bans honking - other than to warn antihero driver - all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. her argument: Since the dawn of the automobile, care horns have sometimes served as a form of expression. Because of that, Porter says, beeping is protected under the First Amendment.
..... "The care horn is the sound of democracy in action," her lawyers wrote in their appeal.
..... Though they appear to be rarely enforced, similar laws are on the books in 41 states, according to court records. A New York law bars drivers form sounding car horn for anything other than as a "reasonable warning: Missouri admonishes drivers to sue their horns "for warning purposes only."
..... Porter's attorneys say such requirements defy reality. During the pandemic, to avoid bringing large crowds together for a traditional campaign rally, then-presidential candidate Joe Biden organized drive-in rallies in which he encouraged people to "honk if you want to be united again."
..... In 2020, a convoy of truckers honked their horns outside the White House in protest as President Donald Trump was delivering remarks in the Rose Garden.
..... At the time, Trump described the horns interrupting his remarks as a "sign of love."
..... The Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that speech protected by the First Amendment encompasses more than the spoken word. in a landmark 1969 decision, for example, a 7-2 majority of the justices ruled that students wearing black arm bands to protest the Vietnam War were taking part in protected speech. The court has also ruled that campaign contributions are a from of political speech.
..... D Avid Loy, legal director at the California-based First amendment Coalition, said he was as stunned as Porter to learn about "warning-only: care horn restrictions and the extent to which they exist across the country. Many of those restitutions, he said, date to the early 20th century and were enacted without much thought to First amendment implications.
..... "This kind of expression with vehicle horns is as old as the automobile. "We've been doing this for decades," said Loy, who has been working on Porter's case for years. "Who doesn't honk their horn at somebody to say 'hello' or honk at the protesters on the conner? I mean, everyone does it."
..... California's Department of Justice and an attorney representing the San Diego County Sheriff's Department did not respond to requests seeking comment. But in lower courts, the state argued the law is intended to improve traffic safety by avoiding the distraction of other drivers with unnecessary noise.
..... "Horn honking is very loud and districting by design and the restitution ... has been 'nearly universally accepted as a means to reduce the incidence of vehicular accidents' for more then 100 years," the state told an appeals court in 2021, partly quoting form a lower court's earlier decision in the case.
..... A three-judge panel of the San Francisco-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit sided with the state in May, [2023] concluding that horn honking can be a from of "expressive conduct" but that California;s interest in traffic safety justified the law. In a decision form tow of those judges, the court wrote that there was a "common-sense inference" that the horn's "usefulness as a warning tool" would be reduced if more and more drivers use it for other purposes, like beeping at a protest. The third judge dissented.
..... The law at issue in the Supreme Court appeal is different from noise ordinances adopted in many local communities. Those usually involve time or place restrictions barring drivers from leaning on their horns in a residential neighborhood, for instance, or in the evening. The California law Parter was ticked for violating is categorical meaning it applies at all times and places.
..... If the Supreme Court agrees to decide the case, it would add to a docket full of First Amendment controversies this term. Andrew Row, one of the lawyers working on Porter's case, said that California officials had taken notice of the appeals court decision against Porter and had been :emboldened" by it. During the Hollywood strikes this year [2023] a sign appeared outside a studio in Burbank, California, where some workers were protecting.
..... "Excessive horn use," the sign warned, "violates" state law.
..... "This is not just a theoretical thing," Row said. "It's now being used by law enforcement."

HOME