The other day I was repairing some stuff on my motorcycle which had been damaged during a recent big service. Nothing serious, but it required I reroute some cables going to the battery.

When I was preparing to take the bike in to get the clutch replaced (again, nothing serious, just some pre-emptive maintenance) I discovered during my safety check — I always check the lights, turn signals, brake lights, horn, etc., and look for telltale leaks before I set out for the first time each day — that the horn didn’t work.

Not having a horn is a bad thing, but not a Really Bad Thing, because, frankly, if you absolutely must use the horn it means (a) you failed to anticipate a serious problem and avoid it and (b) you’re wasting time better spent on emergency evasion.

Nonetheless, I do want a working horn. I figured I’d mucked something up when I was rerouting those power cables.

You can imagine my surprise when the mechanics told me, nope, the horn just died. Post hoc, ergito propter hoc.

Which is Latin for “just because something occurred after something else doesn’t mean they necessarily have anything at all to do with each other” :).

It’s amazing how often humans — even humans who are aware of the failure mode — make this mistake. Which probably means our brains are wired that way, and it’s only education and vigilance which lets us get past the problems that bias can cause. Sometimes :).

Of course, I’ve always wanted to upgrade the horn — it’s too dinky for my tastes — so now I have to. Sadly, the one which sounds like a bellowing, roaring mountain lion isn’t waterproof so I couldn’t use it. Instead, I opted for one which sounds “just like a classic Buick horn” :).