Any big city bicyclist knows that being small and silent on the street is a deadly combination. Drivers of 2-ton cages are simply immune to anything but the sights and sounds of combustion engines riding four on the floor. This issue affects silent-running hybrids and compact electrics too, something Japan's government is taking seriously in a new government review that could result in a mandate for the inclusion of "a sound making function" in their future eco-rides. Safety aside, we presume Japanese manufacturers would choose a sound that's as tasteful and unassuming as their locally brewed hybrids. Imagine if GM was to make a similar decision...
oh, right.
posted Jul 3rd 2009 8:01AM
They could make it sound like an ice-cream truck.
This isn't necessary. They better not try something stupid like this in the States.
The ice cream truck music is already in use by others.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_LJEDPjsjs&NR=1
They should make them sound like a lightsaber. They could crackle when they bump into stuff.
I love how quiet my prius is.....
They should make them sound like the spacecars on the Jetsons.
I'd rather that they just had a flip-down mic above the drivers seat. Then I can provide my own effects in time with my driving.
so they're assuming most people won't add some quad 12" subwoofers in their vehicle and go pimping down the street to some cheap SuperMassiveBassEarthquakeFX CD won't be adequate enough for people to hear you from miles away?
Agree with the jetsons thing. We need to find a futuristic sound.
Mazda could make one that constantly goes "Zoom Zoom". That wouldn't get annoying, would it?
@umm....hello???
you really think a hybrid engine could handle woofers?
HAHAHAHAHAHA
Customised horn sounds as well? "MOVE BITCH! Get out the way'
Personally, I was thinking 8-Bit Super Mario soundtrack. But maybe that's just me.
So when you crash, it's the same sound effect as when Mario gets squished and dies and proceeds to fall straight down off the screen wagging his arms? Or when you take it for a spin on a pedestrian sidewalk your car goes all-rainbow and plays the "invincible" jingle while the people you run off are walloped and thrown over you? Or the next time your car enters a tunnel it makes the same sound as when Mario goes into a pipe to go underground? Also, if you are able to speed up fast enough (doubtful) to propel your car onto a ramp and try to plow as high up onto a flagpole as possible you get that final victory theme!
I approve...
I would actually prefer the Pacman "wakka-wakka" sound.
I will settle for nothing less that the sound the cars make on "The Jetsons".
Total no brainer.
@Derek, you should make a after market device that does exactly that!
Sign me up for one!
i want my car to make the transformer noise every time i start it. eerrr orrr uhh. uhhhhhh
:-D
Absolutely needed! Residential streets in Japan are narrow (sometimes only one lane wide), with blind corners (houses tend to have solid walls or fences 1 inch from the side of the road), and no side-walks so people just walk along the roads! They have a lot of mirrors (the curved kind that we put in our parking garages), but that isn't much to rely on.
I guess it'll help, but to be honest a normal-sized car is already a lot easier to see than a bicycle.
What if you're blind?
Blind people have other options. There's no reason to create noise pollution on all future silent cars just for one tiny subset of the community. If you want, the same result can be obtained from a sonar device on the car and detector in the person's pocket. Silent, but still effective.
What, so you've never stepped out blindly because it was quiet?
Cars also move faster, take longer to stop, and can't swerve around a pedestrian while staying within a lane, like a bicycle. A crash is avoidable even if a cyclist and pedestrian don't notice each other until they are only a few feet apart, but it's a big problem if a car and pedestrian get that close together undetected.
@fanman
"What, so you've never stepped out blindly because it was quiet?"
It's the driver's responsibility to look out for pedestrians stepping out onto the street and the pedestrian's responsibility to look before crossing (just like we were taught as little kids).
And again, there hasn't been widely reported incidents of people being killed by hybrids because they are silent. I bet if anyone bothered to come up with statistics there's virtually no-one affected by this supposedly issue. And, above certain speeds, the tire noise dominates. And there are luxury cars that are just as silent as hybrids when cruising. In my opinion they are making a big deal out of nothing.
@Evan et al
The majority of the sound preceeding a vehicle comes form the tires, not the engine - just listen carefully the next time a 4 cylinder car rolls past you.
And as for the argumentation hat sound is needed to increase pedestrian safety, whast a load of hogwash. What is needed is that a) Drivers pay attention when they are behind the wheel (stop texting and calling, whilst shaving/putting on your make-up and rolling a cigarette), and b) that Pedestrians behave in a predictable fashion (e.g. cross at the damn crossing and only when the DAMN LIGHT IS GREEN).
woohoo! ringtones for cars!
Do they realise that most of the sound made by a moving vehicule is caused by its movement through and disruption of air, not its engine.
Only at really slow speeds would it need to make a sound.
my money is on the noise a milk float makes only louder
I walk everywhere with headphones on and can't hear a thing so I simply use my eyes to look if there are any cars coming. It works great and I haven't been run over once!
Anyone who gets run over by an electric car because they decided to walk into the road without looking deserves it. Keeping these cars silent will act as evolutionary means of weeding out the morons.
It's darwinism doing its thing...
@Richard: You're assuming that everyone is a good driver. What happens when you're listening to music and a car comes from behind, runs a red light, or comes around a corner? Not every driver is going to follow the rules, so an audible car helps to detect ones flying out of places that they shouldn't be.
@peepeepants
Its not about being good driver.
Its about you, looking both ways before crossing the road.
peepeepants - you are a dullard.
It would be cool to make them make the sound the cars on the Jetsons made. The frequency would change with the speed of the car just like on the show.
Make it sound like a massive V8 engine. The right sound generating software already exists in games
Can I get one with the KITT scanner sounds?
Yup, that's where I was going. The lightbar scan sound going back and forth, or the turbine sound. Very cool...
How about it make the Godzilla sound!
"Blind people depend on sounds when they walk..."
Maybe they're the problem.....hmmmmm
I think this is a great idea. I am a deaf person of challenge and I have been hit by 4 hybrids in the past 6 months because I thought it was clear to cross the street. The only sound I heard was after the fact when the drivers honked that doooo-doo-doo-dooo-doo......do-do tune .
I meant I am a "blind person of challenge". I must have mistyped because I couldn't see what I was typing.
With any luck everyone else is a blind person of challenge so they wont have to read what you typed either :-)
PS i hate wireless internet, i typed up a lengthy comment just to have it drop out of me and i lost it all *sigh*.
I sympathize, one of my professors and a good friend of mine is blind and it makes it terrifying for her to try and go out, especially with a cane, with all these silent cars. I think it would be great if there was a device that the BLIND person could have that would sound when there was a vehicle going a certain speed at a certain distance, etc.
My vote: Make it sound like the explosive results of last night's vindaloo curry.
This has three advantages:
1. Safety: People - whatever their creed - instinctively know that this is a noise not to be near.
2. Ecological Responsibility: The mandatory sound will put people off driving, if they are constantly assaulted by the sound of their bowels deciding to call it a day. Therefore people will only drive when they have to. This, combined with more ecological cars will significantly cut vehicular pollution.
3. Social Inclusion: Imagine a sunny day in a quiet suburb. Your window is down, you stop at a traffic light beside a someone in another car. Suddenly you feel the need to fart. Previously had you done so, you would have faced social embarrassment, as either it would have been audible, or covering it would have been required you to rev the engine - inviting 'speed obsessed jerk' comments. With the same noise emanating from the car all the time, no such fears.
This is where the iPhone is a great solution once again. You could plug the iPhone into the aux port of the car stereo, roll the windows down and crank the iFart apps up to full volume.
When I pull up next to some one, they don't even notice. I almost ran over a guy because he wasn't looking.
http://fiestamovement.com/agents/view/58
I was loving the electric cars idea specially about reducing the noise... what a bummer, I hope it doesn't become a trend.
Did you guys tried to pay attention on how much of the noises you hear all day come just from the cars passing by?
A tip to all cyclists: Ride your bike like everyone is out to get you. That's a tip I learned from Neal Stephenson's "Zodiac" a long time ago.
This is how i do EVERYTHING. Driving a car, motorcycle, bicycle, walking... you can't assume other people are paying attention and will avoid you because 9/10 times, they are assuming that others are paying attention and will avoid them. Treat life as if you're the only one that knows whats going on and you'll avoid a lot of accidencts.
Maybe you get a megaphone and have to yell out the window. CAR CAR! COMING THROUGH. MOVE FAT ASSES.
Oh, the irony of the person encased in a multi-ton metal and plastic cage calling pedestrians "Fat Asses". LOL
The Fisker Karma ER-EV will use small speakers mounted in the rear valence to generate an artificial exhaust sound. Currently it sounds like a small jet turbine spooling up combined with the burble of a large displacement V8. From what I understand, there will be an option for owners to choose whatever sound they please by loading a sound file.
They'd find a niche market for samples of a Big Block Chevy V8 with big headers and open glass packs, powered by a 500W amp.
Sure, a full charge now only lasts for 20 miles, but, damn, does it sound good before the speakers wheeze to a stop!
" we presume Japanese manufacturers would choose a sound that's as tasteful and unassuming as their locally brewed hybrids" .... I'm thinking maybe HARLEY-DAVIDSON here.
i want the pod racer sound or tie fighter sound (which was just the recording of semi trucks anyways)
I've decided to use a recording of the Flight of the Valkyries, (AKA "Kill the Wabbit" as performed by by Elmer Fud.) I'm changing the lyrics a bit...
Wook owut fo' da Pweeeus
Here come da Pweeeus
I'm dwivin da Pweeus
I'm savin' fuwel
Man I hope not. We don't need more noise. Making cars noisier will not change anything for those driving noisy cars of thier own anyway. People need to just look where they are going. It is not terriby difficult.
The whistles go WOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
whahaha. Great idea!
I think this is a good idea, my wife rides a bike to work and I'd feel better in world of hybrids if they made a little more noise. It'd be kind of pointless at higher speeds so it could turn down after around 30-40 but a subtle sound for city streets would be a small sacrifice to make to assure people's safety. I used to be a cyclist and expecting someone to turn around every few seconds to see if there's a car behind them is pretty unreasonable, the audio que is necessary and going uphill a car is likely to come up behind a person pretty quickly.
Like's been mentioned before, they only need to compensate for the sound of the engine, there will still be noise from the air turbulence caused by the car and the sound of the tyres on the street.
...and so the rest of the planet must bend to your will, because your wife bikes to work and it would make you 'feel better?' Wow. Hey, how about if all narcissistic muddleheads like you wear beepers so the rest of us can avoid contamination by your imbecile rays?
I fully expect detailed online instructions for disabling this.
Sure try that. Disable it, then if you do hit someone - you'll be sued till you're crosseyed.
Who can afford lawyers nowadays?
TIE fighter sound. Eeeeeeoooowwwwwwhhhh would be frickin scary from a mile away.
the tires are a large part of the noise a car makes. I'm sure they can find some noisy tricycle tires for the prius and other smug vehicles.
"Kaitlyn, honey, what did Mommy tell you about crossing the street?"
"Listen both ways."
I'd want my Prius to sound like Tick Tock the Croc..
Since were talking about prius. Top Gear did a test on the them and how they are made and they actually do more harm to the environment than a normal car could do in 15 years. Amazing how a car thats suppose to be green does the most damage.
I vote for the Frogger tune - and add a sighting target to the front hood - like the Mercedes star.
Utter nonsense. Most passenger cars have decent cabin isolation (not to mention music), and again, most passenger cars don't make a lot of noise. So you're not hearin gother cars anyway. This isn't a problem. The problem with bikes is that they're small and so don't always catch the same level of visual recognition a car does; not that they're quiet. Motorcyclists recognize this, and compensate for size with a LOT of noise. Which works. There is no visual problem with a compact car -- none at all -- and therefore, no need to compensate with noise. This is just more whining and bitching for the sake of ignoramuses hearing themselves talk. Or ridiculous compensation for the blind that should never be considered in the first place.
Don't forget that this argument is often used by proponents of ICE cars. A similar campaign of misinformation was started in Australia by a bunch of V8 enthusiasts.
he got it of afp i dont trust afp this is a possible lie
So basically they're rice-ing out their hybrids too now
Meaning people watch out already.
Incidentally, japan has google streetview so everybody can check out the streets themselves now.
Was suppose to be a reply to evan's "Absolutely needed!" post saying it was needed because of how the streets are in japan.
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The whole Blind pedestrian thing is bad argument for noise pollution. Has anyone seen a blind person run or jump out the way from an incoming vehicle? They are going to get killed regardless of noise or not. A simple wearable notification device for traffic lights should suffice.
One of the things I love most about my hybrid is its engine silence at low speeds.
I don't believe there's any statistical proof of a higher than average accident rate with hybrids running in silent mode.
In reality, there's a fair bit of tire noise when the car is rolling, so I think the concerns some people are expressing (without any evidence), are misguided.
These are the sounds I want for my Prius. I want to be able to select them based on my mood: Ferrari, Cobra, Peterbilt, old VW Beetle, old two-stroke Saab, 1970 Dodge Dart with a sticky valve. Feel free to add, but they must be iconic sounds ;-)
I hate to be cranky old guy, but don't you kids realize that even non-hybrids have negligible engine noise these days? Unless the car is accelerating heavily you don't hear engine noise over the wind/tire noise on most cars from the outside. And the Prius actually often makes more noise when accelerating heavily due to the low-displacement engine revving up; electric-only is automatically disengaged during heavy acceleration.
Simple - Cards in the spokes
Soil is a sort of ecosystem unto itself, and it is relatively sensitive to foreign matter being applied to it. That’s good for us in the case of wanting to add soil amendments, fertilizer and compost to make the soil healthier, but not so good when it comes to soil pollution.