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But that is something you should not get rid of in electric cars anyway. They emit already much less noise than regular cars and are thus harder to hear by pede

But that is something you should not get rid of in electric cars anyway. They emit already much less noise than regular cars and are thus harder to hear by pedestrians. You don't really want super silent 1ton metal blobs moving around at 30++km/h as far as I know

abecedarius 8y ago
I really think I do. The traffic noise in cities makes conversation impossible almost everywhere outside (I'm hard of hearing); meanwhile public places inside that would otherwise be quiet enough get filled with music. Yes, making quiet cars safe is a challenge, but why not try solving it before assuming a bug is a feature?
eternauta3k 8y ago
Just put a speaker on every car playing Canon in D.
PeterStuer 8y ago
At 30 km/h, the car's sensors will make it stop near instant in case this is required. There is no need for insisting on noise pollution.
- core-questions 8y ago
  Awareness of what's around you is greatly aided by a bit of noise. Given the early failures of self driving cars and what we know about mechanical reliability of normal ones, I don't think I want to pin my life or the life of my children on some automatic stop that might not work. Better to be able to get out of the way sooner.
  - PeterStuer 8y ago
    As always, it is a trade-off. Our joint use of the public streets is based on a certain trust that drivers will not try to plow into people. That doesn't mean you have to recklessly abandon all precaution, but it does mean that there are always going to be edge cases that are unmitigated. I think the vehicle based terror attacks have sadly illustrated that point. Walking the streets in a defensive mode that assumes low speed sneaking up by a driver intent to kill, or being completely oblivious to the surrounding, while at the same time driving a vehicle with defects in its core functions feels like an edge-case. The near ubiquity of people walking or cycling with headphones, or fully being fully engaged with their mobile phones seems to support that. Cars are dangerous and operated without proper care for sure, but there are very, very few injuries from ultra low speed collisions with cars. On the other hand there is enormous evidence of serious stress caused by traffic noise having an impact on health. The whole 'car noise' thing was lobbied by car-makers hoping to cash in on a 'custom ringtones for cars', modeled after the mobile phone market of the 90's. Do you believe that these random noises will avoid more deads and injuries than those created by the resulting stress and 'postal' incidents by those having to involuntarily suffer this? There are better options. Have slow moving cars emit a low powered radio or radar signal instead. Very compact and extremely low cost detectors and emitters already exist for those. Those that wish get a proximity warning without harming innocents, and as a added bonus this also works for people with reduced hearing, either because the have a hearing problem, or because they are wearing headphones. The only ones that would suffer a tiny bit are the car makers missing out on selling sounds. Can't say I'm very sympathetic to that crowd as they have amply shown a lack of responsibility and care for people's health and well-being . As usual, the benefits they want to pocket are once more blatantly oblivious to the societal downsides as they have been fully externalized for them.
    - core-questions 8y ago
      > car-makers hoping to cash in on a 'custom ringtones for cars', modeled after the mobile phone market of the 90's This is singularly the worst idea I have ever heard in my life
UncleEntity 8y ago
Yep, a Prius running slowly on battery power is silent enough that people tend to just walk right in front of you since they can't hear it coming...but also makes it easy to sneak up on someone and hit them with the horn for some entertainment value, gotten quite a few friends (and jaywalkers) like that. I was talking with a blind guy a while back about the beeping crosswalk things and he was saying he had to quit walking to the corner store because the intersection didn't beep and he almost got run over too many times since he had a hard time figuring out which direction he was able to walk by listening to the car noises alone which near silent cars would only exacerbate. Probably be easier to make all the crosswalks beep instead of forcing cars to make unnecessary noise pollution but until that time...

abecedarius 8y ago

I really think I do. The traffic noise in cities makes conversation impossible almost everywhere outside (I'm hard of hearing); meanwhile public places inside that would otherwise be quiet enough get filled with music. Yes, making quiet cars safe is a challenge, but why not try solving it before assuming a bug is a feature?

eternauta3k 8y ago

Just put a speaker on every car playing Canon in D.

PeterStuer 8y ago

At 30 km/h, the car's sensors will make it stop near instant in case this is required. There is no need for insisting on noise pollution.

core-questions 8y ago
Awareness of what's around you is greatly aided by a bit of noise. Given the early failures of self driving cars and what we know about mechanical reliability of normal ones, I don't think I want to pin my life or the life of my children on some automatic stop that might not work. Better to be able to get out of the way sooner.
- PeterStuer 8y ago
  As always, it is a trade-off. Our joint use of the public streets is based on a certain trust that drivers will not try to plow into people. That doesn't mean you have to recklessly abandon all precaution, but it does mean that there are always going to be edge cases that are unmitigated. I think the vehicle based terror attacks have sadly illustrated that point. Walking the streets in a defensive mode that assumes low speed sneaking up by a driver intent to kill, or being completely oblivious to the surrounding, while at the same time driving a vehicle with defects in its core functions feels like an edge-case. The near ubiquity of people walking or cycling with headphones, or fully being fully engaged with their mobile phones seems to support that. Cars are dangerous and operated without proper care for sure, but there are very, very few injuries from ultra low speed collisions with cars. On the other hand there is enormous evidence of serious stress caused by traffic noise having an impact on health. The whole 'car noise' thing was lobbied by car-makers hoping to cash in on a 'custom ringtones for cars', modeled after the mobile phone market of the 90's. Do you believe that these random noises will avoid more deads and injuries than those created by the resulting stress and 'postal' incidents by those having to involuntarily suffer this? There are better options. Have slow moving cars emit a low powered radio or radar signal instead. Very compact and extremely low cost detectors and emitters already exist for those. Those that wish get a proximity warning without harming innocents, and as a added bonus this also works for people with reduced hearing, either because the have a hearing problem, or because they are wearing headphones. The only ones that would suffer a tiny bit are the car makers missing out on selling sounds. Can't say I'm very sympathetic to that crowd as they have amply shown a lack of responsibility and care for people's health and well-being . As usual, the benefits they want to pocket are once more blatantly oblivious to the societal downsides as they have been fully externalized for them.
  - core-questions 8y ago
    > car-makers hoping to cash in on a 'custom ringtones for cars', modeled after the mobile phone market of the 90's This is singularly the worst idea I have ever heard in my life

UncleEntity 8y ago

Yep, a Prius running slowly on battery power is silent enough that people tend to just walk right in front of you since they can't hear it coming...but also makes it easy to sneak up on someone and hit them with the horn for some entertainment value, gotten quite a few friends (and jaywalkers) like that. I was talking with a blind guy a while back about the beeping crosswalk things and he was saying he had to quit walking to the corner store because the intersection didn't beep and he almost got run over too many times since he had a hard time figuring out which direction he was able to walk by listening to the car noises alone which near silent cars would only exacerbate. Probably be easier to make all the crosswalks beep instead of forcing cars to make unnecessary noise pollution but until that time...