A cyclist who had a driver sound his horn at her for 40 seconds has said it should be illegal to use it without proper reason. 

In May, author Joanna Donnelly was cycling home after visiting her brother’s grave on his 25th anniversary. 

As she neared home, she noticed a bus was letting off its passengers. 

“I noted it, but it was stopped a good bit away from the end of the cycle lane,” she recalled on Lunchtime Live. 

“I proceeded on to the cycle lane; we went through a set of traffic lights and just after we went through the set of traffic lights, I became aware of the noise of the engine just behind me. 

“It was getting quite loud and quite close.” 

In her peripheral vision, Ms Donnelly saw that the bus was about to overtake her but then the driver spotted an oncoming car and had to pull in quickly. 

She heard him sound his horn. 

“Immediately I thought something's happened,” she added.

“The car didn't get in on time or something has happened behind me because why would you sound the horn? 

“I looked over my shoulder and, no, he was just annoyed that he hadn't managed to overtake and there wasn't another opportunity for him to overtake because we're now on a bending, narrow road.”

The driver kept beeping his horn and Ms Donnelly realised he wasn’t about to stop. 

“It was after seven seconds or approximately that, I said, ‘He's not stopping,’” she said. 

“I took out my phone, my phone was in my hip pocket, very handy to me. 

“I started recording, thinking that he would see I was recording him and go, ‘Oh, I better stop.’

“Because he's very, very identifiable.” 

At that point, Ms Donnelly headed off towards her estate and the driver began shouting at her again. 

“I want other road users to understand, you don't sound the horn when somebody says you're annoyed at them,” she said. 

“That's not the proper use of the horn… It should be illegal.”

Main image: Horn. Picture by: Alamy.com.