Last year I wrote some articles about the Screaming Banshee Motorcycle Horn. Just to recap, the Screaming Banshee Horn was a project on Kickstarter where it sought for funding to develop the project.
One of the incentives for people to donate to the project was to sign up, pay some money, and you received one of the first horns of the production line. The project got some legs, was funded, and the rest is history and the Screaming Banshee Horn is moving ahead.
I received my unit all the way from the Florida in the United States and all I needed then was the time to install it. That came a couple of months later.
In my garage I started stripping off the Honda ST1100 fairing to install it. I won’t go into the installation however it is mounted in behind the fairing of the Honda ST1100 on the right hand side, just behind the mirror.
There was vacant real estate and there it went, attached to the fairing frame.
Mounting the Banshee Horn
There isn’t much room where I mounted the Screaming Banshee Horn on my Honda ST1100, however, a couple “double pikes” and twists with some redundant zip ties, it fell into place, four hours later. Check out the pictures below of where the Screaming Banshee Horn is mounted on the Honda ST1100. Click on the images to see a closer view of the installation.
Wiring the Banshee
That was pretty straightforward as I had a lot of earlier auto-electrical experience in my younger years, the Mk 1 model needed a relay to trigger the horn, apparently the boys at Banshee have rectified that minor issue on all new horns. I also set it up so that if you hold your finger on the horn, the headlights flash and horn comes on and off with the flashing headlight, kinda like an alarm.
While I was at it
I also installed LED indicators, LED dash and warning lights and Phillips brighter headlights.
Ready, Set, Test, not so fast…
It’s bummer when you finish wiring up something at 12.30am in the morning. I like my neighbours and I spared them the noise at that time, so, it was the next day before I discovered how good the Banshee Horn is.
Time for the Big test
1. Press the horn and the normal horn comes on.
2. Leave your finger on the horn for .25 seconds and it all happens, 135 decibels of the Screaming Banshee Horn and its all happening!
Coming away from the test ride feeling like Dr. Evil, I’m thinking to myself this is going to be fun.
I started looking for opportunities to use it in earnest. I kinda felt like I’m in an old gangster movie walking around with my finger on the Thompson Sub machine gun, shoot first then ask questions later. Well, it wasn’t going to happen. A day later I settled in to my normal riding routine to and from work.
The first time I used it, it saved my life.
It was a Wednesday evening at dusk heading towards winter in Canberra and I’m riding home. It’s dark, the road is wet from rain.
I’m riding at 50km/h max, not fast and the car in front is making a left hand turn, I’m heading on. I know I’m in a place behind the car turning left where I could potentially not be seen, I couldn’t drop my speed that much to give adequate space for any cars turning right out of the left hand street to see me, however I did wash off a little speed.
It didn’t help that the car turning left, turned wide into the corner making matters worse, and there it was, a Hyundai Excel 2 door car waiting to turn right out of left hand street across my path, its view hidden by the car turning left, turning wide into the street.
I know they can’t see me.
As soon as the car in front starts turning left into the street, here it comes, the Hyundai, heading across my path. They should have waited for clear visibility, but that’s now history.
I’ve washed off some speed, remember its wet. It’s time to hit the horn or I’ll be wearing the driver’s door.
The soft horn comes on, they’re still coming, then the Banshee comes in. “Blast”. Wow, that Hyundai stopped abruptly on the spot, half way over the give way line, they’ve now seen me.
I’m super impressed; that’s what I’m taking about, wow, that was great. I came away from that experience confident with my investment into the purchase, if it works once, then it’s saved my life.
Below is the street where the incident occurred.
This was the spot where the Screaming Banshee Horn saved my Butt!
Now that it’s broken in
There have been several experiences where the horn has been used:
- The time where a four-wheel driver merged from a left lane to the right hand lane where I was and the driver didn’t look. I could see him in the side mirror but he didn’t see me, he just didn’t look. A blast from the Screaming Banshee and he over reacted and swerved to the left. He had that “wobble” that occur in vehicles when you quickly tug on the steering wheel. When we pulled up at the next set of lights side by side, he wound his window down and apologised, explaining that he too was a rider and should have concentrated more.
- There was the time when I was coming home from work and Annette my wife was following me. We were merging from two lanes into one across a bridge. The rule in the ACT says that the vehicle in front has the right of way. Well, the driver had come from behind our car in the left hand lane that was running out and proceeded to “undertake me” on the left hand side on the single lane bridge. I saw this all unfolding in my mirror and thought this is not good, not for me but for them. The Screaming Banshee horn quickly brought to their attention they were doing the wrong thing, and they backed off. I think they were new to Australia and were not aware of the local road rules.
- As Canberra is known as the Bush Capital of Australia we have a lot of bird life that gets on the road. The Banshee horn is great for warning off the Birds long before you arrive at the point where they’ve been on the road.
So the Screaming Banshee Horn has become the “standard” piece of motorcycle equipment for me.
Its worth it’s weight in gold.
Get a Screaming Banshee Horn today and get a 10% discount
Well, that’s my story with the Screaming Banshee Horn what will yours be? You won’t know until you buy one.
Click the link below and you can buy a Horn today. By the way, I’ve been informed that if you use the link below, you’ll receive 10% off any of the products instantly at the checkout.
I suppose the question is how good is your current horn? Is it good enough to let others around know that you are there? If it doesn’t then you need a horn that will do that. The Screaming Banshee Horn will not disappoint.