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The problem is that if the frequency of false alarm is high enough, people ignore the real ones. There is also a problem where the alarm causes harm or causes people to unintentionally become harmed.

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In Poland, it was common to use alarm sirens on the occasion of national holidays, even the less important ones. I was so used to meaningless alarm signals that hearing one was making me wonder what anniversary it was, instead of thinking about the potential dangers.

I'm not sure if it was a nationwide problem – voivodes (provincial govenors) could arbitrarily decide on the use of such a signal to commemorate important events. Maybe it changed since then.

Apparently there was actually a point in time like they talk about in driving school, when a honking car horn meant “watch out,” not “fuck you.”

In England it seems to mean 'the football team I support has advanced an interesting development'.

Very rarely in nyc is a horn a fuck you. Often it is a watch out - but probably most often an impassioned but vain plea.

But is that an actual problem? People (and not the person that reported it) are complaining about a single claimed occurrence in an internet forum.

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