4 ms·

I'm guessing an engineer named it the German equivalent of "pre-crash" sound, then someone in marketing decided that "pre-safe" sounds better. It may be better

I'm guessing an engineer named it the German equivalent of "pre-crash" sound, then someone in marketing decided that "pre-safe" sounds better. It may be better to call it "foreplay" sound, since if you ever hear it you're probably screwed.

bagacrap 7y ago
The name grates on both my ears and my eyes (due to the awkward shouty capitalization).
dmix 7y ago
Definitely someone over thinking it. "We don't want them to associate the car with crashing so let's use a generic word that doesn't make any sense without having to read 4 paragraphs on the marketing website". So many startups do this too with product names, they fear whatever name will be too "limiting" and end up with some generic name that doesn't communicate anything at all. Brand names shouldn't be taken so literally either, no one cares that "Vodafone" sells Internet and TV connections, not just cell phones. Or that Salesforce sells a whole bunch of products unrelated to sales. Or Facebook is expanding outside of social networks into AI and VR. But more importantly than the brand/trademark is the product names don't have to be all encompassing of everything the product does (or plans to do in the future). People are smart enough to connect a name to a group of things even if the name is only about one of them. And a negative term like 'pre crash' is far more memorable than 'pre safe'.
kbutler 7y ago
Some technical disciplines use "safe" as a transitive verb meaning "to make it safe", either from damage or from damaging other things. I've seen it most often in rocketry contexts - you "safe the rocket" in an aborted launch scenario so it won't go off accidentally, etc. "It is a good idea to add a safety release valve to your launcher. Sometimes it is important to abort a launch and safe the rocket after it has been pressurised." http://www.aircommandrockets.com/rocket_launcher.htm (Google "safe the rocket" for occasional other examples.) So the PRE-SAFE sound means the sound is to "safe your ears" before the crash, making them safe from damage.
- deleted 7y ago
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- Dylan16807 7y ago
  But for that definition it's not "pre" anything. It's either a safing sound, or a pre-collision sound.
  - kbutler 7y ago
    The event is the collision. It's safing in advance of the event (pre-safe), rather than after the event (post-safe), which would be too late.
skgoa 7y ago
You are 99% correct. We use the english terms for this here in Germany, too. Everyone in the industry used to literally call this feature and others like it "pre-crash".

bagacrap 7y ago

The name grates on both my ears and my eyes (due to the awkward shouty capitalization).

dmix 7y ago

Definitely someone over thinking it. "We don't want them to associate the car with crashing so let's use a generic word that doesn't make any sense without having to read 4 paragraphs on the marketing website". So many startups do this too with product names, they fear whatever name will be too "limiting" and end up with some generic name that doesn't communicate anything at all. Brand names shouldn't be taken so literally either, no one cares that "Vodafone" sells Internet and TV connections, not just cell phones. Or that Salesforce sells a whole bunch of products unrelated to sales. Or Facebook is expanding outside of social networks into AI and VR. But more importantly than the brand/trademark is the product names don't have to be all encompassing of everything the product does (or plans to do in the future). People are smart enough to connect a name to a group of things even if the name is only about one of them. And a negative term like 'pre crash' is far more memorable than 'pre safe'.

kbutler 7y ago

Some technical disciplines use "safe" as a transitive verb meaning "to make it safe", either from damage or from damaging other things. I've seen it most often in rocketry contexts - you "safe the rocket" in an aborted launch scenario so it won't go off accidentally, etc. "It is a good idea to add a safety release valve to your launcher. Sometimes it is important to abort a launch and safe the rocket after it has been pressurised." http://www.aircommandrockets.com/rocket_launcher.htm (Google "safe the rocket" for occasional other examples.) So the PRE-SAFE sound means the sound is to "safe your ears" before the crash, making them safe from damage.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
Dylan16807 7y ago
But for that definition it's not "pre" anything. It's either a safing sound, or a pre-collision sound.
- kbutler 7y ago
  The event is the collision. It's safing in advance of the event (pre-safe), rather than after the event (post-safe), which would be too late.

skgoa 7y ago

You are 99% correct. We use the english terms for this here in Germany, too. Everyone in the industry used to literally call this feature and others like it "pre-crash".