This strikes me as a horrible, horrible idea:
For decades, automakers have been on a quest to make cars quieter: an auto that purrs, and glides almost silently in traffic.
They have finally succeeded. Plug-in hybrid and electric cars, it turns out, not only reduce air pollution, they cut noise pollution as well with their whisper-quiet motors. But that has created a different problem. They aren’t noisy enough.
So safety experts, worried that hybrids pose a threat if pedestrians, children and others can’t hear them approaching, want automakers to supply some digitally enhanced vroom. Indeed, just as cellphones have ring tones, “car tones” may not be far behind — an option for owners of electric vehicles to choose the sound their cars emit.
Can you imagine every car going down the road blasting the driver’s music preference as a car tone. Just kill me now.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
I’ll stick with the dulcet tones of my built 351 Windsor in our Mustang. That and the 1,600 watt stereo system ought to warn anyone I am coming. If not, fuck’em if I run them over. ;)
That versus silence or car tones? I’ll stick with cacophony.
Derelict
I don’t think that’s what they have in mind, but if they mandate some kind of digital electronic device, that’s where it will end up.
The more likely outcome is that tire design will change. One of the constraints on high-traction tires right now is the amount of road noise they produce. If we want more noise to serve as a warning to pedestrians, perhaps we can get that by going to noisier (but higher-traction) tires.
David
I am confused. The post was something about Bennet and health care, then when I come to comment it reverts to car noise.
That’s odd.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
On second thought, having an electric car that emits the sound of continuous flatulence that increases with speed would be interesting.
Napoleon
File this under the more things change the more they stay the same.
When I was a little kid I had a book on early motorcars that I looked at so many times I destroyed the binding. The first drawing in it was of an early motorcar proceeded by a man with a red flag to warn people it was coming, which was the law of its day.
Luddites, I tell you, all of them!
CapMidnight
We’ll counter with all pedestrians’ Blackberrys’ computer voices read all Twitter tweets aloud.
Dayv
This is a false problem. We already have millions of people walking around with headphones blasting music or chattering away on their phones, cars drowned out by the sound of construction, and some people who are deaf or simply hard of hearing. Drivers need to be on the lookout for pedestrians at all times, and pedestrians need to look both ways.
Besides, there’s nothing to stop an IC vehicle from coming at you with its engine off, they just don’t do so as frequently.
RedKitten
They should just give them all the sound of the space cars on the Jetsons.
Even worse, you’d see an increase in accidents as most people would be fiddling with their car’s tone settings while behind the wheel.
Hunter Gathers
I can’t wait for “my car tone is cooler than your car tone”.
The Sarahpocalypse approacheth …….
Face
I love the exclusivity inherent here. As if children cant be pedestrians. As if deaf people never walk.
What’s next? Banning Ipods on city streets b/c users cant “hear” all the honking, screetching, and whining of cars and buses?
Hiram Taine
@Derelict:
High traction and low rolling resistance are probably mutually at least somewhat exclusive. Hybrid and electric vehicles generally are running special ultra-low rolling resistance tires so tire noise is at a minimum on those vehicles.
My hearing isn’t all that good any more but I can hear the bicycles coming up behind me on my rails-to-trails path, I’d be surprised if a hybrid car was any more quiet than a coasting bicycle.
JenJen
This is quite possibly the worst thing I have ever heard of.
General Winfield Stuck
@RedKitten:
Excellent idea. They could also make a Fred Flintstone horn.
Yabba Dabba Doo.
Bob In Pacifica
Let the sound of a million ice cream trucks bloom!
IndieTarheel
Yeah, because actually looking where the hell you’re walking is such a silly idea, innit?
Svensker
Gives “Car Talk” a whole new meaning.
Original Lee
I have to agree that some of the hybrids are very quiet. I was standing in my driveway the other day, with my back to the street, and a neighbor who had just gotten a new hybrid pulled into the driveway and sneaked up on me, nudging the back of my knees with his bumper. Scared me half to death! So I guess the concern is valid, even though the proposed solution is stupid. I think Derelict offers the most sensible solution, which of course means it will never happen if the music industry can earn more bucks implementing John’s nightmare.
I want the Geico missing money soundtrack for my car.
Alex
I’ve already nearly been croaked by a silent Modec 7.5 tonne electric truck. I’m going to have mine quack like a duck every time I put my foot down.
Actually, I said in a comment somewhere about a couple of years ago that my solution to this would be to have an open arc flickering away somewhere on the car; your hurtling approach would be heralded by a sinister high voltage hum, loud crackling, and big blue sparks. To say nothing of a whiff of ozone.
Sadly, probably hellishly inefficient and impossible to get type approved.
jon
Imagine all the lives that would be saved if people actually looked into their blind spots before changing lanes or entering traffic, checked twice for motorcycles or bicycles, or if drivers (and pedestrians) actually knew how crosswalks are supposed to be lawfully used!
Too bad that’s impossible, since we, on the whole, are not very good drivers.
Comrade Mary
Welcome to the world of the stealth cyclist. But when clueless pedestrians walk in front of us, we are much more likely to get hurt, too.
4tehlulz
THEY SEE ME ROLLIN’
THEY HATIN’
Violet
Apparently the new quiet cars are a problem for blind people who have traditionally used their ability to hear cars as part of their strategy for knowing when it’s safe to cross a street.
As for car tones, a way too high percentage of cars in my neighborhood already have tones – the very loud bass tones that are audible from several blocks away and that, when on my street, make the windows rattle. If lawmakers are going to legislate something, I’d rather they legislate against that kind of thing.
MNPundit
I want quiet cars of the future. If the price is a few dinged folks…. I can ignore the costs.
Svensker
I live in a hilly suburban area with no sidewalks and lots of little kids who play in the street all the time. Lots of drivers (including moi) coast down the hills and consequently the cars don’t make a lot of noise on the down slope. When I’m out on the street walking the dog, I find those coasting cars can really sneak up on you, particularly if you’re distracted — viz, the dog has decided to try to catch the passing kitty, you’re negotiating a particularly messy poop into the receptacle, one of the neighborhood kids has come over to pet the doggy, etc.
Kids are almost always distracted and also are just unaware of the damage a car can do to a body and, consequently, less vigilant about paying attention to traffic. There are also older people whose hearing and reaction times aren’t great. Both of these groups especially need extra consideration from drivers (and maybe cars).
Artificial car noise better be “car noise” tho, rather than tunes.
SGEW
I demand that all cars hereby emit the dulcet tones of the Tasmanian Devil’s musical vocalizations.
I can’t think of anything better to grab people’s attention.
smiley
OT but apparently my local newspaper now publishes chain emails as letters to the editor:
Debunked here.
ellaesther
I don’t think we have to go to the trouble of killing you now — this post gives me the impression that you will be killed anyway, when you fail to notice a whisper-quiet car driven by someone like you or me who refuses to buy a car-tone. BLAMO!
What tone would you like your hearse to play in the funeral procession?
Zifnab
That’s why so many people get run over by bicycles or runners that are not also heavy breathers.
:-p Tell you what. I’m going to continue looking both ways while crossing the street. You can stick whatever crazy “ring tone” you want on your car and I’ll continue to not buy it.
Freak’n retarded.
GReynoldsCT00
@Derelict:
or somehow jam playing cards against the spokes like we used to do with our bikes…
mquirk
I’d LOVE to have an Aptera with the Jetsons sound option – I wonder how it handles in the snow?
http://www.aptera.com/
gogol's wife
I love the way that John Cole’s posts are often just inspiration for humor riffs (send saltpeter to Boehner, etc.) rather than political commentary. It’s what makes this blog so magical (along with pictures of Tunch, Lily, and Bitsy).
inkadu
Pedestrians? What are they? Something from @Napoleon‘s antique mechambulator book? I can’t remember the last time anyone gave a crap about pedestrians, making this sort of thing unlikely to pass.
@Svensker: How wide are your streets? How tall are the curbs? How many traffic calming devices are installed? Modern suburbs are death traps. The speed limit sign says 25 but the road says 45.
Persia
My daughter is hard of hearing, so she often doesn’t hear car noise and can’t hear electric vehicles coming at all. On the flip side of this, though, one of the reasons we bought a damn hybrid car was it was so quiet: We no longer have to scream toward the back seat to see where she wants to get dinner. If I have to start yelling again, I will not be pleased.
Napoleon
@smiley:
For God sake write them and set them straight.
Leelee for Obama
@GReynoldsCT00: This would be teh awesome! They always attracted attention when I was a kid-and I don’t think the decibel level would be high enough to do any damage to hearing.
OTOH, a car tone that sounded like a reg, well-tuned engine might be the best idea. Not too loud, very familiar and easy to get recordings of, as the cars will be sitting around doing not much.
And, yes, I intend to leave that participle dangling until we get Health Care Reform. Power to the People!
jibeaux
You guys know that a Prius cartone is just going to be NPR, right? Say what you will, but kids *will* get out of the way of Ira Glass.
Morbo
BOB complaining about the nanny state and how this relates to minorities and/or women receiving benefits that only white men should be entitled to in 3… 2… 1…
jibeaux
Seriously, though, I can see the concern. For example, there is an intersection I cross on the walking route to my kids’ school which is near but not exactly at the top of a hill. You can’t see the traffic on the other side, and really without even realizing it, we rely on hearing to know if there is a car coming up the hill when we go to cross.
Waynski
As a denizen of NYC and perpetual pedestrian, I don’t think having a uniform noise for hybrids and electric cars is a bad idea, but having people able to choose their own sounds? That’s fucking retarded. How am I to know that some random noise some idiot picked out is a car or just the normal background noise of the city. Just another way to make money IMHO.
Mark L. Haag
Is there any reason to think quiet cars are more of a hazard to pedestrians than cars with loud pipes or booming speakers (that make the average car impossible for a pedestrian to hear)? Why don’t I hear any calls to seriously address loud pipes or loud stereos?
I would put a (quiet) bell on my Prius when lawmakers make a serious attempt at getting the loud vehicles off the street.
ellaesther
@gogol’s wife: BITSY!
That’s right – VOTE BITSY!!
Leelee for Obama
Say what you will, but kids will get out of the way of Ira Glass.
ellaesther
@ellaesther: Damn it this is the second time on this ferkakting blog that I tried to embed a link in the words “VOTE BITSY” and it didn’t work.
Let’s see if the problem was the caps:
Hey, y’all: Vote Bitsy!
Leelee for Obama
Format Fail! Damnit!
Deborah
For the legally blind trying to cross at an intersection without those little dinging lights, this is an issue. (They can still be wiped out by bikes, but okay, cars are heavier.)
Everyone else (including kids, of which I have a few) needs to look both ways. We have the technological skills to address this threat right now!
asiangrrlMN
No. No to car tones. I fucking hate ring tones already (except mine. I lurves mine because I keep my phone off so I don’t hear them).
@Waynski:
I agree with this idea. But no fucking car tones. Car alarms are bad enough.
Bob (Not B.o.B.)
@DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal):
Amen brother. Amen.
That said, I would go for the Star Wars, Landspeeder sound-effect for my car.
ellaesther
@Deborah:
“For the latest in security tech: EYES! Come on, kids – they’re all the rage!”
This makes me think of something my sister says about her favorite cleaning fluid:
“Water! It’s the universal solvent!”
GReynoldsCT00
@Morbo:
Here’s to hoping we can avoid B.O.B for at least one thread today…just one
asiangrrlMN
Grr. My post did not post. I just wanted to say that hell no to the car tones. Hell yes to the uniform noise of electrics/hybrids. I fucking hate ring tones (except mine because I keep my phone off so I never have to hear them), and I can’t imagine cars having the same ability.
SGEW
@GReynoldsCT00:
I haven’t been around much recently, but I was hoping that B.O.B. had been banned for overt racism and uber-creepy sexual harassment.
Too much to wish for?
asiangrrlMN
One more time. BJ is eating my comments.
No to car tones. Yes to a uniform noise for electrics/hybrids.
Now, damn you, moderation, let me through!
John Sears
I have a Prius and I’ve actually heard this sort of thing before. For some reason this safety lobby has been after Prius owners for years.
The 2010 Prius has a button that allows you to toggle the quieter electric-only mode on or off and run without gas (for about a mile). This feature has been in the Japanese models for a while but they delayed putting it in the US cars for some time, supposedly for safety (so if you look at my 2009 model you can see where the button was supposed to go).
I just don’t get it, myself. If your road is set up such that you can clearly hear cars coming at a significant distance, why can’t you see them? If on the other hand we’re talking curvy, residential streets where you can’t see the car coming, why would you be able to clearly discern it by sound, and how fast do you think the car will be going anyway?
gnomedad
On the other hand, it would be entertaining to witness a “hybrid owners’ rights” rant from the wingers.
smiley
@Napoleon: Already have.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
I used to ride a 1975 Honda 554 with a modifed dual-exhaust that had the baffles removed. Man, did I love the sound of that bike. Loud and deep, probably saved my life more than once as everyone on the road (including mom’s with a minivan full of brats) knew where I was. My first apartment was on a one-way street and as I would approach from the main street I would set off every car alarm along the 3 block ride.
I stopped riding in the late 90s because the proliferation of SUVs and minivans made it impossible to see the road ahead. Even though I could brake quickly it didn’t mean I was safe from being run over from behind by a truck that couldn’t.
Leelee for Obama
Not sure, but these may be the dreaded unknown unknowns, which as we all know have caused multiple badnesses in the past.
Ken
jon @17: “Too bad that’s impossible, since we, on the whole, are not very good drivers.”
I am reminded of the survey where something like 85% rated themselves as above-average drivers.
Leelee for Obama
@Ken: Rain Man Syndrome? Far more wide-spread than previously believed.
GReynoldsCT00
@SGEW:
yes, John is still tolerating him, but I think the rest of us are really, really done…
ellaesther
@asiangrrlMN: Young lady, if I have told you once, I have told you a hundred times:
Leave your s h o e fetish at the door!
(I don’t know why, but the s h o e thing never fails to crack me the hell up. I’ll move along nao…).
John Sears
@gnomedad
Hey yeah, that’s a great idea. I’ve always wanted my own outraged glibertarian pets.
Of course the dream is that Glenn Beck, always in need of new fears to go psychotic over, will latch on to this and deliver a weepy/screechy rant about how “First Obama came for the Hybrid-owners, and I didn’t speak up for the Hybrid-owners, because I wasn’t a Hybrid-owner…”
Leelee for Obama
@John Sears: If irony laps satire, will that be the wingularity? There has to be some cosmic event that will trigger it-keeping up with the latest iterations is really time-consuming!
John Sears
@Leelee
I’m not entirely sure that we aren’t in a wingularity already. Does the wingularity have to be a very narrow event in time, or can it be a prolonged process where we all are slowly consumed by madness?
Seanly
I want the always classy “La Cucaracha” except instead of my horn, it’ll be a digital recording! Sweet.
BethanyAnne
@SGEW: no, no…. you gotta go with the classic…. which has it’s audio track disabled on YouTube. /shakes fist
Hafta settle for the remix.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfmUv2FNDjE
On repeat ;-)
Leelee for Obama
@John Sears: All things are possible-after all, Rome didn’t fall in a day-or something!
slag
Cars shouldn’t make noise. Period. The only people who should have any real problem with cars not making noise is blind people. And the way to deal with that is better infrastructure support for the blind rather than making all cars make noise. Progress is a less-polluted America–and that includes noise pollution.
slag
@smiley: Did you write your newspaper to correct them?
Leelee for Obama
@slag: I agree with you, but I always remember Churchill’s opinion that one can always depend on Americans to do the right thing, after they’ve tried everything else. Baby steps, baby steps.
John Sears
@Leelee
True enough. I would be in favor of a more dramatic winularity, myself, if I could choose it.
Something like you wake up one day to discover that in the midst of the night all the wingnuts finally got their activation signals and went Galt. Fox News is still on, 24/7, but there’s no one behind the desks and their broadcast is deliciously silent. As you drive into work you see the burnt out shells of various winger households who decided that the UL was a commie plot, or that they’d rather their homes burn down than a socialist protection racket like the fire department save them. You also pass the police arresting a group of wingnuts (armed with 2x4s with nails in them) for attempting to steal the public park under ‘Natural Law’. There’s a group of Ron Paul followers operating a charity car-wash, except that the charity is themselves, and they’ll only take gold coins. (They’re not doing much business.) The news on your car radio reports a wave of hilariously inept intra-winger violence, as libertarian after libertarian attacks their crazy wingnut neighbor/family member/spouse/child, attempting to take their car/lawnmower/side of the bed/favorite toy by force, since cooperation is anathema to free will, and the courts don’t apply to them, because Obama’s a Kenyan, plus the flags in courtooms have the wrong fringe on them.
I could go on but I’m starting to creep myself out.
JackieBinAZ
Instead of working on this, they could get around the pedestrian problem by developing those flying cars that we all expect to drive in the future.
jimBOB
Reason # 67,234 why building transportation infrastructure around private automobiles is a bad idea.
kommrade reproductive vigor
This is causing me to rethink my position re: Private ownership of grenade launchers.
Although it would be fun when hackers figured out how to transmit a signal that would change the music. EVERYBODY POLKA!
Leelee for Obama
@John Sears: Yeah, it’s easy to carry on into Left-Behind territory, but it might be a literary(?) phenomenon if we all did one chapter in a giant compendium. And then…Profit! Think Regnery would publish?
Leelee for Obama
@kommrade reproductive vigor: I hurt my tummy laughing at this! Did you hear Lawrence Welk too?
smiley
@slag: Yes.
inkadu
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford: If it makes you feel more justified in your hatred of other motorists, I’d be happy to run you over if it would stop you from setting off car alarms.
Mnemosyne
I’ll take “Ride of the Valkyries,” please.
celticdragon
@IndieTarheel:
Children playing on suburban streets would be at risk.
Maybe I’m just showing my age here, since in the 70’s and 80’s we actually did play frisbee/baseball/whatever in the street.
Hob
@inkadu: If it passed, it wouldn’t be for the sake of pedestrians; it would be for the sake of fucking up electric cars. Call me paranoid, but I wouldn’t be one little bit surprised if fossil fuel interests aren’t still stupidly hoping to smother this thing in its crib.
Martin
So did I, but we just ignored the cars until they honked. Nobody died. Given a little time everyone would adjust.
This is like banning cars because they’ll spook the horses.
cmorenc
@DougL
This concept not only already exists, but has been around for quite awhile. It’s called a motorcycle.
OK, so there aren’t any hybrid electric motorcycles around (yet). But you already know *exactly* what an electric car or motorcycle equipped to make the sound of flatuence that increases with speed will sound like – BEEN THERE, DONE THAT.
John Sears
@Leelee
Not a bad idea… a group authored book about libertarianism, with our very own modern version of Galt as the protagonist.
Wingnuts are immune to satire so they might buy it in droves never realizing that we’re mocking them.
ppcli
I can’t wait. Me, I’ll put “No Voices in the Sky” (Motorhead), the overture to The Flying Dutchman (von Karajan version), and the Reverend Horton Heat’s “400 Bucks” on constant rotation. Those pesky children and pedestrians will scatter like bunnies when I pass through town.
ricky
Cars don’t kill horses. French eat them.
Xecky Gilchrist
This made me think of the early automobiles that had fake horse heads stuck on the front so as not to alienate people.
And I’m not the only one!
LD50
Bad analogy, since hybrids aren’t about to make children obsolete.
Dollared
Can you imagine every car going down the road blasting the driver’s music preference as a car tone. Just kill me now.
Jamey
My car will emit the sound of Jack Benny’s Maxwell.
Leelee for Obama
@John Sears: Colbert Syndrome strikes again! Let me know if this gets off the ground at all, I’ll be glad to contribute some little missive!
Joe
Ice Cream Truck Music. Increases in tempo as the car speeds up…
Joe
Yakety Sax – the Benny Hill theme. I can just imagine the WalMart parking lot with that for background music.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@inkadu:
I stopped riding my motorcycle a few years ago and I no long have the 554. I still have a 1975 Honda 750 but it sits in my brother’s garage collecting dust.
I live in a walkable urban neighborhood and can get by on the bus and light-rail. I’d rather sit and listen to my mp3 player or read than deal with traffic.
Jon H
@RedKitten: “They should just give them all the sound of the space cars on the Jetsons.”
YES.
WANT.
Sentient Puddle
I suppose I’m one of the few who immediately started thinking of what obnoxious songs to blast as my “car tone” while driving. I think I settled on this one:
NOBODY GONNA TAKE MY CAR
I’M GONNA RACE IT TO THE GROUND
NOBODY GONNA BEAT MY CAR
IT’S GONNA BREAK THE SPEED OF SOUND
And yada yada.
roseyv
Rrriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. Because once they make the engines quieter, you won’t be able to hear the stereo blasting at eighty million decibels anymore.
This is a brilliant innovation!
jerry 101
How long until someone starts recording pootie sounds for their cars?
One day, you’re walking down the street, it’s a beautiful day, you’re enjoying the world around you, and…
MMMMMMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! …as a Volt goes flying by.
Like a giant frightened mouse, you crap yourself and jump into a tree.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
Yes, horrible idea. I’m a big fan of quiet. Huge fan of it, actually. I don’t know what these safety experts are thinking, on a practically weekly basis my local news has a story about some dumbass teenager getting crushed by a train because he or she was busy texting or something. And nothing makes more goddamned noise than a train.
Folks who are too goddamned stupid to avoid trains or look both ways before crossing the street need to be removed from the gene pool.
Zuzu's Petals
I’m a super-attentive pedestrian and I’ve been surprised by Priuses backing out of parking spaces (for example) more than once.
I’m for a little recognizable sound.
Nanny
Better your ears are hurt or you are annoyed or offended than one creature gets really injured or killed. Don’t interfere with progress and safety.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
In other words, better we all be forced to live in a miserable dystopia than any amount of risk, no matter how miniscule, be allowed to exist.
No thanks.
Leelee for Obama
@Bruce (formerly Steve S.): So, you’re the guy who picks the Darwin Award winners. Does it pay well?
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
Only in the satisfaction of a job well done.
Several tens of thousands of people are killed by cars, period, every year. Why do we have cars at all?
Some tiny subset of those will be killed by Priuses that they couldn’t hear coming. How many? What is the social cost of introducing added noise to the environment so that these people maybe won’t be killed? Why don’t we put warning buzzers in the shower to notify us of slippery conditions? Why don’t we put warning buzzers on every goddamned potentially dangerous thing there is?
When you folks have worked your way through these questions let me know.