I just got back from riding is Spain.
Horn there: 100 feet back, quick beap just to let you know they are coming. If someone does beap they are bike friendly and usually yelled out encouragement. About 30 percent seemed to beap
Horn in USA: About 10 feet back, loud prolonged blast, you know you better hang on tight because it is either an old person with white hair and cataracts or a young redneck who is going to flip you the bird and call your mother rude names.
Feels like a good thread to share my best ever ‘cycling and cars in Europe’ story. Last year was on the way back from a group irde up the Col de Tourmalet with a bunch of friends from Uni. Me and another guy were a bit quicker than some of the others and the roads were so good that when we hit the valley floor we decided to 2up TT it back to the campsite (about 20 miles). We’d been cracking along for about 5 minutes when suddenly this car pulls alongside, horn blaring with a grinning Frenchman leaning out the window and gesticulating widly. We had no idea what he was saying so just grinned back and waited for him to pass.
Anyway he pulls in front of us and then slows right down to our pace and we can see through the rear windscreen his passenger climb over the rear seats into the boot (it was an estate car). All of a sudden the boot pops open and the passenger who’s sat there starts waving us forward into the massive slipsream. It’s only then that we start to realise that just for fun he wants to motorpace us! Nither my mate nor I had ever tried this before but the driver clearly had and we were soon doing 36-37mph - far faster than I’d ever been on the flat before and the best fun I’d had on a bike evr. About 10 miles later the road split; we went one way and our new friends went the other with a final wave and an au revoir.
I can’t see that ever happening in the UK!
Funny you mentioned this - I just had this discussion the other day about just exactly HOW to honk to signify passing to a cyclist. It is all in the execution, you are right. The quick beep, a bit, back. They do the same thing, even taxis, in the Caribean Islands to signify just about anything. A prolonged blast is much more of a warning - like typing in caps I guess.
Sometimes it is hard to distinguish “horns” meanings, just like translating emotion/intent on internet forums as well 
I’m in New Jersey … there is no etiquette … for anything.
Interesting thread.
We have a local running team out here in Las Vegas. They have fully supported runs that are along the same course a lot of cyclists use. Dan “The Running Man” gives quick short honks from the van to runners as he passes them to determine if they need water/help. He does this to bicyclists and has actually helped a troubled rider before. However Dan drives a very large van. As a rider, when I hear any lound bursts, I get nervous. But I know in this case, Dan is always out there for support. I tell him not to honk at cyclists as he passes because it makes them nervous. (Las Vegas drivers are not known for their attention to detail - or people on the road for that matter)
It makes me wonder if I’m doing cyclists a disservice by telling him not to honk the horn, or he’s doing the cyclists a disservice by honking the horn?
Back when I first started racing bike I had a guy do this with an SUV. Talk about a great feeling, hammering along in the slipstream and to top it off it was the last five miles of the ride.
Think of the cultures:
In Spain, after soccer, cycling is the number two sport as it is in many countries in Europe and elsewhere. In the US, despite Lance Armstrong’s success, cycling is way down on the list of profile sports.
In the US( and Canada to) the car rules the road. Drivers, feel that the road is theirs and anything that holds them up, even for a few seconds is a massive inconveniece. In Spain, much of Europe and the rest of the world, Car ownership is not looked upon as a rite - more a privilige AND their seesm to be an agreement that the road is shared with other forms of transportation.
Also, our north american culture seems to be evolving, not in a good way, I seem to feel. Years ago, when I was out running in the country or cycling. People would stop and ask if I needed I lift - if they saw me running in the rain or if over at the side of the road changing a flat tire, people would stop and see if I needed help. I note that this NEVER happens these days.
Fleck
I got to say, if there is anything that would make me stop cycling, it’s dealing with agressive and drunk drivers. It seems to get worse every year.
Yeap, just yeasterday a guy was killed in Maryland by a driver that was high on drugs. So sad, the news report mentioned that he was training for a cycling tour in Europe.
Dave in VA
Shortly after I moved here (North Central WA state) from LA, I was on a long training ride and had a flat at the top of a long climb. I was at least 25 miles from any phone, business, etc. No problem, the flat was just about repaired when a F150 (see prior thread on F150 owners) coming from the other direction stopped and asked if I needed any help. I was in such a state of shock that I had difficulty responding. I knew right then that I had made the right move.
“You can only be as good as you can be when you are mediocre.” H.L. Mencken
Very cool story.
They didn’t know you were British.
Very cool. I did 3000 miles through the UK and Europe in 1988 on my loaded touring bike. All through France, folks (especially farm trucks) would give me long motorpaced pulls. It was especially helpful out in the Massif up on these windswept farm roads. They do know cycling over there in France.
I got a motor pull once when I lived in NJ… Guess it depends on where… Nice people, pulled me up and over this hill on the way home…
I find once I get about 10K from Calgary people in cars are very courteous to bikes. The vast majority of cars cross to the other side of the road when passing bikes. It could just be that there are so many bikes on the roads on the weekends that people expect to see them.
On some of the secondary highways and in the mountains motorcycles outnumber cars and there are almost as many bikes as cars. It is rare to see a bike without aerobars which shows how Tri crazy this city is.
Calgary? Tri-crazy? Who knew?
Fleck
Yeah Fleck. I think if you just took the word “Tri” out of that statement, you would have a more accurate description of Cowtown! 
My “best cycling in Europe story” involves waking up at 5am in some weird Italian guy’s bed, having too many espressos and then being escorted into Siena by “ugly naked man” in his Opel Astra. My friend and I were not sure where the weird Italian guy slept that night but it was pretty clear by the huge ass-grooves on only one side his bed that he spent most nights in there alone. The espresso was divine. I still don’t know what was up with the ugly naked guy. At first he was naked near a dumpster yelling at us. Then he put some shorts on and chased after us. Then he took off the shorts and got in his car to follow us. He was slowing down traffic as he drove next to us, yelling something in Italian. He finally took off when I started swatting my bike pump at him.
I think that is has something to do with the fact that there are too many engineers with too much money living here.
Yea, road bikes are definitely a minority in the mountains. There are about 300 people from Calgary who do IMC every year so there’s always people doing long rides on the weekend. There’s a half or Olympic almost ever weekend June through August. Most weeks in June / July there’s a group driving to Pentiction to practice the IMC course.
We have 3 Cervelo dealers (peaked at 4) in a city of 1,000,000.
After doing this for 20+ years here is my feelings about cycling in the midwest.
In the city, most of the cars are OK. They are not blatently aggresive and hostile. Some are just stupid, but not too dangerous.
Just outside of the city limits there is what I call the “zone-of-the-mullet”. Kinda a Rod Serling “you have entered the redneck zone”. This is where you take your life into your own hands. Tight roads, 55 mph and bubba on the way home with a 12 pack of Milwakee’s best to the 'ol single wide to watch the WWF. Just freeken scary.
Once in the country, most everyone is polite and calm.
IMO