Wonder what it meant “Horn OK Please” behind the truck? Hope many of us would have given a pass when we see it, but we at CV News, trying to give you some interesting stories behind how this has come to trucks.
These are few possible ways we came to know why the trucks are painted in “Horn OK Please” in bold letters. The writing is basically “Horn” on left side “Ok with a Lotus” in the centre and “Please” on the right side. These are mostly found in north Indian trucks.
- During the late 60’s and 70’s, the roads were usually narrower and require enough skills for the driver to overtake. Also since the roads were single lane you will need extra cautious to overtake so that we don’t endanger the risk of colliding with oncoming traffic. As a safety measure and to support the vehicles in the rear side, it was advised to “Horn” and post hearing the horn the driver will give a signal to tell “OK” and then the trailing vehicle can over take and hence the “Please”. There were also cases of a signal bulb in the portion “OK”, so that the driver switches it on to as a signal to inform the trailing vehicle to overtake. Over a period the signal bulbs got faded away leaving only the painted portion.
- The second theory is that Tata group came up with value detergent product called “OK”. A Company called Tata Oil Mills Company TOMCO was formed to manufacturer this product. This company had lotus as a symbol and Tata trucks being popular in north India, the symbol was drawn in the rear side of trucks to promote this brand. This brand got merged with FMCG major during the year 1993.
- Most interesting and traditional theory dates back to World War II. During the times when there was an oil crisis, diesel was in a demand and made trucks to run kerosene. These trucks were also used to carry troops. So to indicate this they were written “Horn” “On Kerosene” “Please” in the left, centre and middle of tail gates of trucks. This is to inform the motorist behind that it’s a potentially danger that any small accident may cause kerosene to explode and requires utmost caution during overtaking.
It became a tradition and every trucker started to write and it now became a practice. But this had some social issue of unnecessary hoking and creating heavy noise pollution. And this made Maharastra Govt. to ban this writing behind commercial vehicles from April 30, 2015. The main reason cited by State transport commissioner Mr. Mahesh Zagade then was “it gives licence to motorists to honk unnecessarily and there have been numerous complaints of excessive honking in silence zones such as near hospitals, schools and colleges. We have, therefore, decided to impose a ban on the use of this phrase”
The circular issued clearly states that “Horn OK Please” is a gross violation of Section 134 (1) of the Maharashtra Motor Vehicle Rules, which deals with signages to be used on the rear and sides of vehicles”. This made an end in states like Maharastra but still this popular in Gujarat, Punjab, Chattisgarh, Haryana etc.
Interestingly till now this is not popular in any of the southern state trucks and truckers.