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Electric Cars May Be Made Noisier By Law
msgtomatt writes "The Pedestrian Safety Enhancement Act would require electric cars and hybrids to make noise, and would fund the Department of Transportation to create a set of rules for automakers, who would be allowed some leeway in how they carry out the guidelines." Downloadable and do-it-yourself car-tones are the future: my own snoring could keep deer and toddlers off the road.
More than once I've had to side step quickly to avoid a Prius in a store parking lot - I'm used to audio cues of my environment, and they just weren't paying attention while backing out.
Sound-makers on Prius and others is already being done in Japan
The best thing about a boolean is even if you are wrong, you are only off by a bit.
How about George Jetson's bubble car sound?
I see adults cross the street without looking while on the phone and not even notice me beeping at them. And this was back when I drove a beat up car that sounded like a Boeing 747
Amen to that brother.
The thing that floors me is that people get hit by trains. TRAINS! We're talking like five-thousand plus tons of steel rumbling down a track, and people don't notice. How is this even possible? How self-absorbed do you have to be to notice a freaking TRAIN. I used to live not far from a freight line and the whole bloody ground shook when a train went by...
Do people really have problems with this kind of thing?
Yes. I don't feel any "safer" when I'm awakened by a dump truck backing up a quarter of a mile away. Do you?
Consider the rapid growth of hybrid/electric cars' market share. If the same epsilon-minus bureaucrats responsible for backup beeper regulations have anything to do with this law, it will almost be worth moving out of the city to avoid the racket.
It seems unnecessary to make things nosier for everyone when the number of people that need the noise is very small. Why not just have an electronic transponder system so that people can know where cars are relative to them. It would even work on vibration for those that are blind and deaf. It could give out more information, like speed and direction, and it it could work from further away if necessary.
I have a black Nissan Titan with a 6 inch lift and a winch bumper that is made from 1/4 steel. My tires are 35x ProComp Xterrains and my truck has a Banks exhaust (not my choice, it's annoyingly loud, rumbles even at idle), The truck is huge, ominous and pushing 400HP with a wide open exhaust. People step in front me all the time in parking lots. In fact the one thing I don't like about my truck is that the windshield edges are huge blind spots. Some lady tried to walk in front of me today in the parking lot of a local box store. HEY STUPID, IF YOU CAN'T SEE THE DRIVERS FACE, HE CAN"T SEE YOU. [anyone with issues with guys that drive big trucks; I am in Alaska, I am a volunteer medic and wilderness rescue tech. I have used the winch on my truck no less then 120 times to pull stuck cars out of snow banks, rivers, etc since I bought it in 2006]
I do not play in the middle of the road
This is actually an old story. Originally marketing and PR firms noted that cars produce distinctive engine noise that promote the label and with electric cars this would be gone, hence they worked on the idea of electric cars making marketing driving noise and seeking excuses to force it on customers.
This bit of legislative douchery is the means by which they can enforce it. They admit that above 20km per hour tyre noise is sufficient to alert pedestrians and below 20km per hour, well excuse me but if you hit a pedestrian below 20 km per hour your not paying attention. Even at low speeds rolling resistance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_resistance is a measure of tyre flex, hence abrasion and noise.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
I used to work in a neighborhood with a college (I don't remember if it was a college or a high school, right now) with a large number of blind people.
Street crossing had a different kind of texture in the walkway. The traffic lights would make noises like "cross", "stop". While it was possible to cross it made a distinctive tone, changing it's pitch as time goes.
It worked. Way better than blind people jaywalking and relying on car noises.
English is not my first language. Corrections and suggestions are welcome.
+1 Harrison Bergeron.
Really though, precisely how loud is NY City without auto noise? It might just be a rustle of footsteps, but fairly quiet and peaceful.
Maybe it would stop crime because you can hear someone holler when a purse gets snatched.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
In India and other places, they use horns to "warn" people and it is so unbelievably noisy, and people are so used to the horns that it becomes white noise almost. You honk and the person(s) you are issuing the warning to, COMPLETELY ignores you and does whatever the hell they wanted to do in the first place. When I come back to US, it feels like bliss, nothing having to listen to that. Imagine, hundreds of thousands of people just honking all the time. I think this is just a bad law, and hope it does not pass.