Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter Subscribe NEW YORK, May 12 (UPI) -- Nissan Motors executives say they do not yet know what the gentler horn on the Japanese automaker's next generation New York City taxi will sound like. Joe Castelli, a Nissan spokesman, said New Yorkers should not look forward to "a parakeet chirping or something like that," The New York Times reported. Advertisement "I don't really know what low annoyance means yet either," he said. "But the horn can be tuned. We can tune this in a way that is less offensive." Nissan is expected to deliver the cab, an NV200 van, by 2013. In addition to the low annoyance horn, it is supposed to be equipped with an outside light that will go on whenever the driver uses the horn, helping police nail those who break the city's little-enforced law against needless horn use. The Times compared the horn sounds on vehicles now used as taxis and found a range of sounds. It compared the horn on the Ford Escape to a saxophone blue note while the Ford Crown Victoria produces an approximation of a major third. The Nissan Altima, the Times found, has a trumpet-like sound. Advertisement Nissan said last week it will present city officials with a range of horn sounds and let them decide which best combines being able to get attention without being annoying.
