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Comment by OJFord | Hacker News Reader

Apparently (this is just via someone on Reddit who supposedly heard/read it somewhere) the ship mayday'd on losing power hoping the bridge could be cleared.

But why not (or did it?) also just blast its horn repeatedly, drawing attention so people on or near the bridge would notice it and realise something was wrong and perhaps even where it was headed?

I'm sure it's not allowed generally and not the protocol and whatever ... But it does seem like a common sense & do whatever you can sort of situation to me?

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Why would a driver think a ship's horn was signaling them?

AIUI most souls on the bridge were construction workers filling potholes, not drivers. But either way I'd have thought a certain amount of horn blowing would catch my attention just for being out of the ordinary, even though it's also not ordinary for ships to (need to) signal me.

Ya the people on the bridge would have less than 4 minutes to figure out the ship is crashing then to clear 2500 feet of bridge. When you're working with construction equipment you'd probably not notice till you had seconds left.

4 minutes is a lot longer to save your life than nothing? And do you really think that's the answer, that was the calculation on the ship - well they only have 4 minutes until we hit anyway, so there's nothing they can do, not worth it?

I wasn't criticising anyone, I was 1) asking if that happened; 2) asking why it might not have.

I think the answer is much more likely that the loss of power disabled the horn (as others have suggested) than that the crew thought it wasn't worthwhile because there was insufficient time for anyone on the bridge to fare any better anyway!

So, it turns out they did call in an emergency and the police did shutdown the bridge. The police had no direct way of reaching the workers and weren't going to wander out there with an imminent impact. So, evidently, no there was not enough time.

'So,' I said that in my initial comment. The police may not have had a way to reach them, but the horn would have. There was a lot more time than none, who's to say if it would have helped. I think the correct answer is as given by others, that actually the loss of power would have disabled the horn too.

> But why not (or did it?) also just blast its horn repeatedly,

Hard to blow your electrically driven horn when you've lost power.

I suppose I assumed it was compressed air, that once you had a 'full' (at pressure) tank, you could do a certain amount of blowing even without power. But fair point, I don't really know how they work, and if they are actively electric I certainly didn't know that and obviously that wouldn't have worked and so there's the answer.

> I assumed it was compressed air, that once you had a 'full' (at pressure) tank

Even so, it probably still requires electricity to activate the solenoids to open the valves or whatever. I'm speculating since I don't know how large boat horns work, but I wouldn't be surprised if they require power.

Oh good point.

There are specific horn signals (one prolonged, or seven-short-one-prolonged, are what I'd guess would be appropriate here), and COLREGS do explicitly say that you can use whatever you need to get attention in an emergency as long as it's not confusable with some official signal. But as other commenters have noted it wouldn't have been specific enough to get the workers etc to clear the bridge before the impact.

> But why not (or did it?) also just blast its horn repeatedly,

It's hard for people on the bridge to understand what that means. The more it blasts the horn, the more likely people to turn around, stop and maybe get their phones out to take a video what strange thing this ship is doing. By the time they realize the impact is imminent, it's too late, unless they take a helicopter ride.

Because horn blasts are very specifically meant to communicate something to other ships. Once you're in "just blast it" mode you're seconds from disaster. I recognize the nobility of your suggestion, but I don't think it could have saved more than couple lives at most, probably none.

Well yeah, they were only minutes away at the point they lost power, there was very little time to do anything at all, that's why I asked. Personally I can't really imagine anyone holding it against them for using the 'signal that's for other ships' 'incorrectly' or 'against protocol' in such a situation. I think the comments speculating that the horn is either purely or in some way (e.g. solenoid) dependent on electricity is more likely the answer. I think a reasonable human in that situation who knows what's going on (that's why I mentioned that they apparently were able to radio/however they mayday that there's an issue) is going to do whatever they can, including use the horn wrong.

There is a proper signal. You are supposed to give at least five short signals if you think there is an impeding collision.

Alright well feel free to read my original question as if I knew and meant that then, I don't think I precluded it.

Blasting the horn repeatedly is not a standard signal, but there are standard signals which might apply to a situation like this, for example "vessel not under command", "collision imminent", "vessel reversing", etc.

Don't expect car drivers on the bridge to understand ship signals, though.

Also, how does the driver know what to do? Stopping on the bridge, even well before the point where the ship hit, was clearly the wrong choice. Authorities need to stop new cars from entering the bridge while those on it leave, but that takes more than a handful of seconds to arrange. Unless there are traffic lights, perhaps.

Yes, there's no reason for a ship to attempt to signal drivers on a bridge, nor is there any way for them to do so. Signals are for communicating to other ships.

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