Lawmakers Say Electric Cars Are Too Quiet

California lawmakers are pushing a bill that would ensure electric vehicles make enough noise to be heard by blind and visually impaired people. The state senate has already passed the bill but the governator hasn't yet taken a position. If passed, the bill would establish a committee which would study ways electric vehicles could make more noise. The committee's recommendations would be due by 2010. May I suggest a siren or some baseball cards in the wheels.

Comments

Throwback signals

[ewg]

I say, make them whinny and neigh and emit a horse manure scent.

Re:It is a real problem, though

[areReady]

So we should pander to your habits and make cars and, by extension, roads, neighborhoods and entire cities artificially louder?

This is an unfortunate problem, but the solution cannot be to just force cars to make noise. Are we going to stick playing cards in the spokes? What if cars didn't make noise in the first place...this wouldn't be the problem. Surely there is another solution.

Ring-tones for cars

[McGregorMortis]

I always thought, if I had an electric car, I'd actually want to make it not seem so... electric.

It's actually a chance to personalize your car. You could buy car-tones the same way people buy ring-tones. Lots of selection. I'd like my electric car to sound like a Lamborghini, or maybe like something really cool like a gas-turbine. You might prefer a big throaty 70's muscle-car sound. A geek might prefer something like the Jetson's car sound, or the sound of a TIE fighter.

Can't have it both ways

[British]

We can have a few dead deaf people crossing the street a year, or we ALL die from global warming & air pollution. Which is better for you?

Better yet, if you're deaf, look both ways before crossing the dang street.

Perhaps

[arh9623]

The blind could receive a device that works like a wildlife tracker, beeps have a shorter period as a car approaches.

Re:Stupid, stupid, stupid!

[ThaddaeusV]

I've heard that back in olden times, in some jurisdictions, automobiles were required to have a man walk in front of them ringing a bell or some such thing. Maybe we should bring that back.

Actually though, that was when automobiles were a new technology, and now that we have integrated the concept of large machines moving through our streets at speed into our consciousness and know to allow for it, the idea sounds ridiculous. With energy prices doing what they've been doing, the idea of a personal vehicle that wastes fuel by converting it to unproductive sonic energy instead of useful kinetic energy is going to become similarly ridiculous.

Silent vehicles may be slightly more dangerous, but they are better than noisy vehicles in so many ways that nobody is going to be worried about the danger. In the long run, it will improve the human race by Darwinning out the ones who were too dumb to look both ways.