Do you have a great ideas for safety noisemakers to be installed on electric automobiles?

[JohnDBarrow]

This one sounds like the transporter room on the Starship Enterprise when Scotty is beaming Kirk or Spock. A sweet big V-8 purr would be fine by me. 

 

 

Edited Saturday at 06:34 PM by JohnDBarrow

[Phi for All]

This seems stupid. Why add noise pollution when we can reduce it significantly? Teach everyone to watch out, and enjoy the silence. Duh

 

[swansont]

45 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

This seems stupid. Why add noise pollution when we can reduce it significantly? Teach everyone to watch out, and enjoy the silence. Duh

 

Can’t watch out if you have a vision impairment. That’s the population being helped by noisemakers on (nearly) silent cars, since drivers have a tendency to hit pedestrians.

~100k injured a year in the US, according to https://www.banalaw.com/practices/pedestrian-accidents/

[exchemist]

53 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

This seems stupid. Why add noise pollution when we can reduce it significantly? Teach everyone to watch out, and enjoy the silence. Duh

 

I originally thought the same, but actually I find a quiet but unmistakable whirr, which is the artificial noise most EVs seem to be equipped with (at low speed only), is helpful to me as a pedestrian, e.g. when cars manoeuvre or come up behind you in a residential street. 
 

Interestingly, TfL has started fitting the same noise maker to the front of its fleet of rear engined hybrid buses. When I’m on the bike and sharing a bus lanes with these things, it is helpful to be able to hear them now, rather than getting a shock when you check behind and find one right up your arse.

 

@JohnDBarrow is being a jerk as usual, pretending he thinks the noise is to make the car sound macho. I am getting rather tired of his sealioning schtick.

Edited Saturday at 07:34 PM by exchemist

[Phi for All]

1 hour ago, swansont said:

Can’t watch out if you have a vision impairment. That’s the population being helped by noisemakers on (nearly) silent cars, since drivers have a tendency to hit pedestrians.

~100k injured a year in the US, according to https://www.banalaw.com/practices/pedestrian-accidents/

Remove more loud IC vehicles from the road and the EVs can more easily be heard. Require more sound baffling when industrial machinery is in use. Keep removing the noise pollution as much as possible so vision impairment measures are more effective. And along the way we reduce overall stress levels brought on by our overly loud society. 

Personally, I think we need to revisit what it means to be part of a society. Anyone who wants the benefits of civilization but isn't willing to be vaccinated or follow laws has been severely undereducated. If we follow the rules, we deserve an environment that doesn't poison our bodies and senses. 

If this is the way of the automotive future, perhaps there's a solution that targets just people with hearing impairments. Rather than make noise EVERYBODY hears, perhaps there might be a way to signal just those with hearing impairments that a vehicle is near? 

[swansont]

24 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

Remove more loud IC vehicles from the road and the EVs can more easily be heard. Require more sound baffling when industrial machinery is in use. Keep removing the noise pollution as much as possible so vision impairment measures are more effective. And along the way we reduce overall stress levels brought on by our overly loud society. 

Personally, I think we need to revisit what it means to be part of a society. Anyone who wants the benefits of civilization but isn't willing to be vaccinated or follow laws has been severely undereducated. If we follow the rules, we deserve an environment that doesn't poison our bodies and senses. 

If this is the way of the automotive future, perhaps there's a solution that targets just people with hearing impairments. Rather than make noise EVERYBODY hears, perhaps there might be a way to signal just those with hearing impairments that a vehicle is near? 

I don’t think that works in higher population areas, where there’s going to be background noise no matter what and you don’t hear the stealth auto. The vision impaired hear the chirp of the “walk” signal and need to hear if there’s a car ignoring the red light.

[Phi for All]

1 hour ago, exchemist said:

I originally thought the same, but actually I find a quiet but unmistakable whirr, which is the artificial noise most EVs seem to be equipped with (at low speed only), is helpful to me as a pedestrian, e.g. when cars manoeuvre or come up behind you in a residential street.

I think there are equally helpful alternatives that don't add to the noise pollution. No matter how quiet the whirring is, if all the vehicles are doing it, it's going to be a source of noise that we could have avoided. And I still say things would be different for everyone if we reduced most of the industrial and commercial noises we create. Other solutions may present themselves if we remove the worst offenders.

2 hours ago, exchemist said:

Interestingly, TfL has started fitting the same noise maker to the front of its fleet of rear engined hybrid buses. When I’m on the bike and sharing a bus lanes with these things, it is helpful to be able to hear them now, rather than getting a shock when you check behind and find one right up your arse.

I understand, but it just seems redundant to me. You already "check behind" for an accurate assessment of vehicular propinquity. An aural confirmation seems excessive.

3 minutes ago, swansont said:

I don’t think that works in higher population areas, where there’s going to be background noise no matter what and you don’t hear the stealth auto. The vision impaired hear the chirp of the “walk” signal and need to hear if there’s a car ignoring the red light.

I'm a fan of putting cameras on traffic lights. If you really want to stop terrible accidents, we should focus on people running red lights, where the physics results in more deaths. Do that for a while and real life examples show that folks will stop ignoring red lights.

And the higher population areas are the ones that need industrial and commercial noise reduced more than anywhere else. Higher density should mean higher restrictions, since it also means higher benefits.

[exchemist]

16 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

I think there are equally helpful alternatives that don't add to the noise pollution. No matter how quiet the whirring is, if all the vehicles are doing it, it's going to be a source of noise that we could have avoided. And I still say things would be different for everyone if we reduced most of the industrial and commercial noises we create. Other solutions may present themselves if we remove the worst offenders.

I understand, but it just seems redundant to me. You already "check behind" for an accurate assessment of vehicular propinquity. An aural confirmation seems excessive.

I'm a fan of putting cameras on traffic lights. If you really want to stop terrible accidents, we should focus on people running red lights, where the physics results in more deaths. Do that for a while and real life examples show that folks will stop ignoring red lights.

And the higher population areas are the ones that need industrial and commercial noise reduced more than anywhere else. Higher density should mean higher restrictions, since it also means higher benefits.

Yes I have some sympathy with your view. I do think the modern environment is dreadfully noisy, due to all the machines - and often made worse by people adding yet more noise, e.g. music in supermarkets, for no good reason. I recall reading somewhere how quiet life in the middle ages was compared to what we experience today. I suspect we are all permanently overstimulated and that it is not good for us.

[swansont]

52 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

I'm a fan of putting cameras on traffic lights. If you really want to stop terrible accidents, we should focus on people running red lights, where the physics results in more deaths. Do that for a while and real life examples show that folks will stop ignoring red lights.

And the higher population areas are the ones that need industrial and commercial noise reduced more than anywhere else. Higher density should mean higher restrictions, since it also means higher benefits.

Cameras might help catch the perp after the fact, but that doesn’t prevent the accident in the first place. Is there any credible evidence that red-light cams deterred infractions? We know it encouraged fraud from the companies contracted to run them

The one previous systematic review of RLCs found that they were effective in reducing total casualty crashes but also found that evidence on the effectiveness of cameras on red light violations, total crashes, or specific types of casualty crashes was inconclusive.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8356316/

[Phi for All]

1 hour ago, swansont said:

Cameras might help catch the perp after the fact, but that doesn’t prevent the accident in the first place. Is there any credible evidence that red-light cams deterred infractions? We know it encouraged fraud from the companies contracted to run them

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3078079

Most of the studies I've seen admit a reduction in the severity of the accidents, then offer other reasons why it's not such a great idea. I don't buy it, though. This study talks about how the composition of the accidents definitely change, but not the overall number of accidents. They also make the claim that people are in just as much danger of drivers stopping short because they fear a fine, but that's something that would change naturally over time. We've had some added merge lanes in my area, and it took two years before people learned to calm down and let people merge. 

It's the same with the argument that the companies contracted to run them are corrupt, so we shouldn't have red light cameras. There are ways to keep a system like this honest.

[Sensei]

6 hours ago, Phi for All said:

This seems stupid. Why add noise pollution when we can reduce it significantly? Teach everyone to watch out, and enjoy the silence. Duh

I wholeheartedly agree with this. A car traveling at ~ 70 km/h is moving at 19.5 m/s. 2s before it is 40m away. 3s before it is 60m away. The chances of hearing a car (any car) in a city full of noise in the middle of the day are close to zero. Especially since pedestrians are all the time staring at the mobile phone and have headphones on their ears. The same people in the cars hearing radio, mp3 or watching smartphone. The distraction is literally lethal.

The misunderstood problem by policymakers and its solution was transferred to car manufacturers, who did not solve anything anyway.

 

Automatically controlled vehicles would not have such problems because they would stop politely at every traffic light.

A pedestrian who crosses in a forbidden place is not worth the time spent solving the problem of a potential hit. Such things are simply impossible to solve.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Elaine_Herzberg

1.3 seconds before the accident, 25m away, the system detected a bicycle object (it was in an forbidden place)

 

Any modern car can analyze where other cars are or simply download data from the cloud with their GPS location (and upload their own), speed, acceleration. It can predict where they will be in a few seconds or minutes. The same can do anybody with a smartphone. Chinese-style invigilation.. Of course with the message "it's for your own good! we're saving your lives!"

 

 

Edited Sunday at 12:49 AM by Sensei

[JohnDBarrow]

The sweet and authentic-sounding mock sound of a large V-8 engine in a non-combustion automobile might even be a pleasure to the driver. 

2 hours ago, exchemist said:

Yes I have some sympathy with your view. I do think the modern environment is dreadfully noisy, due to all the machines - and often made worse by people adding yet more noise, e.g. music in supermarkets, for no good reason. I recall reading somewhere how quiet life in the middle ages was compared to what we experience today. I suspect we are all permanently overstimulated and that it is not good for us.

There is nothing worse than hearing a radio loudspeaker inside a public restroom when one is trying to sit on the pot with privacy, peace and quiet.  The entrance doors to these bathrooms left wide open so all the store noise blasts inside.  Walmart is the worst noise offender for supermarket shoppers. Retarded store employees carrying on in loud voices laughing and joking, loud forklift beeps, that hillbilly crap or rap crap they play over the loudspeaker in Iowa and Oklahoma. It makes me have to wear my noise-cancelling music headset inside these stores. 

[StringJunky]

As a severely deaf person, I don't see EV's as threat because I use my eyes anyway. People just need to learn to adapt and enjoy the relative peace of EV's. City life is too noisy. Most people seem to wear headphones and stare at their phones most of the time, so the advantage of noisy ICE's is moot anyway. If too many people get hurt, someone will find a way to mitigate it. I think, when EV's are the majority, people will eventually attune to the sound of them without the louder ICE's drowning them out. It's a temporary problem until the switchover is more advanced and EV's are the norm.

Edited Sunday at 07:07 AM by StringJunky

[studiot]

Just now, StringJunky said:

It's a temporary problem

I don't think it is a temporary problem at all.

Further I do not think it helpful that those living under north american rules seem to me to be trying to argue for their 'rules' to be universally adopted.

These rules seem to me to be quite contrary to the european rules in general and UK rules in particular.

 

Quote

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-noise-systems-to-stop-silent-electric-cars-and-improve-safety

 

New noise systems to stop ‘silent’ electric cars and improve safety

From 1 July 2019 all manufacturers must install an acoustic sound system in new types of quiet electric and hybrid electric vehicles to improve road safety.

 

Since this time we have seen the introduction of electric scooters and electric bikes onto our overcrowded streets.

The result has been s spate of collisions with pedestrians, some fatal, particularly when the electric vehicle comes up behind a pedestrian.

The standard of driving of these vehicles and lack of consideration for others has left much to be improved.

 

So now we are introducing electric cars, vans etc, which are bigger and travel faster than these scooters (though some of these have been done for speeding) so any impact has a far greater likelehood of causing serious damage.

 

As regards our duty of consideration towards others this comment disturbs me

5 hours ago, Sensei said:

A pedestrian who crosses in a forbidden place is not worth the time spent solving the problem of a potential hit. Such things are simply impossible to solve.

and runs completely contrary to european law.

The question of pedestrian safety has always been in the UK Highway Code from the first issue.

But it waas strengthened considerably when a new formal heirarchy was introduced.

 

Quote

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/the-highway-code-8-changes-you-need-to-know-from-29-january-2022

2. People crossing the road at junctions

The updated code clarifies that:

• when people are crossing or waiting to cross at a junction, other traffic should give way
• if people have started crossing and traffic wants to turn into the road, the people crossing have priority and the traffic should give way

 

 

Remember that the woman in the picture might have been a small child or disabled person.

Remember that if you choose to introduce a hazard to others,  yours is the primary responsibility to make sure that the danger is not realised, even if they are a bit irresponsible in their actions.

 

 

 

[Phi for All]

9 hours ago, studiot said:

I don't think it is a temporary problem at all.

Further I do not think it helpful that those living under north american rules seem to me to be trying to argue for their 'rules' to be universally adopted.

These rules seem to me to be quite contrary to the european rules in general and UK rules in particular.

For me it's not about rules or adopting them. It's about moving past the need for them. Special needs should be met with special measures rather than forcing everyone to deal with extra noise all the time. I think we can do better for everybody, especially those who might be at most risk from quiet electric vehicles. This is NOT a seat belt issue, imo, where everyone involved benefits from installing the technology. 

I propose searching for different solutions. As an example, the light rail system installed near me had major problems with traffic collisions. They used all kinds of costly measures that impacted even those who weren't crossing the tracks with their vehicles. I had just visited Germany where a relative of my wife worked for a firm that made a monorail train that ran on powered, raised tracks that could be retrofit alongside roadways so auto traffic never intersected with the train cars. Perhaps similar thinking could help keep pedestrian and auto traffic from interacting as much as possible. Or perhaps those with visual impairments can wear a device that vibrates or communicates via bluetooth regarding traffic in the immediate vicinity. Touch and sound only you experience to replace bad vision. I think personalized solutions like this are less expensive in the long run, but haven't been adopted because it seems to give benefits to a select few. 

9 hours ago, studiot said:

Remember that if you choose to introduce a hazard to others,  yours is the primary responsibility to make sure that the danger is not realised, even if they are a bit irresponsible in their actions.

I have a very hard time thinking of removing that loud, obnoxious IC engine noise that the OP loves so much as introducing "a hazard to others". Are cyclists a hazard because they're quiet? Society seems to have figured out a way for cyclists to let only those they interact with know they're coming up, rather than making the cyclists be loud for everybody all the time. 

There is a responsibility when any danger is involved, but I think many of our solutions are done cheaply without consideration for other consequences. Pollution in general is the prime example of being too cheap to clean up our messes and deal with dangers responsibly.