3 ms·

If you want a piece of safety equipment to be readily available to every driver, then putting a radio in the boot won't work. I absolutely think that having an

by shkkmo 2y ago

If you want a piece of safety equipment to be readily available to every driver, then putting a radio in the boot won't work. I absolutely think that having an emergency radio is better preparation that relying on your car. However the inclusion requirement makes sense. It is rare that a group of people will be isolated with without a vehicle and ensuring every vehicle has an AM radio is the best way of ensuring everyone has access to one in an emergency.

zamadatix 2y ago
If you can't be bothered to pull over while driving by yourself in the nuclear apocalypse but you urgently need to get the latest emergency broadcast info despite FM being down (EAS also uses that) and cell towers being down then sure, it's an advantage to have it built in. In every other actually conceivable case... it's a worse answer from both the implementation and execution perspectives. If you can get into someone else's functioning vehicle you can also get to the one mandated to be in the trunk instead, where the radio is guaranteed to work without actually being able to start the car too.
- shkkmo 2y ago
  > If you can't be bothered to pull over while driving by yourself in the nuclear apocalypse Are trying to be silly? I'm much more concerned about drivers having access during a bizzard, earthquake, mudslide, forest fire or any of the other regularly encountered hazards about which AM radio is used to communicate with drivers. > If you can get into someone else's functioning vehicle you can also get to the one mandated to be in the trunk instead, An item physically attached to the vehicle is much more likely to be there. If you think mandating emergency radios is good, then go for it. Let's wait to see how well that plan works before removing a standard piece of safety equipment that has worked well for decades.
  - zamadatix 2y ago
    Blizzards, earthquakes, mudslides, and forest fires don't take out FM radio EAS (many of these don't even take out cell phone EAS...), so why are you listing them as reasons AM in particular is needed? Perhaps was I not clear EAS already uses more than AM? The only time AM is relevant is when the _ENTIRE_ radio communication infrastructure except AM is unusable due to the disaster, such as after a hurricane or in nuclear war, and in those cases you don't urgently need the alert while driving down the highway. If you can't defend new regulation as worthwhile beyond "we, by happenstance, typically had it before so we should keep doing that" then you've failed to defend the new regulation. It either makes sense and should be done properly because of actual safety reasons or it isn't worth doing half assed and inconveniently just because it used to be a possibility. I'm a huge fan of regulation, especially around safety, but only when it targets the actual goal directly. If the goal is "you must guarantee that a vehicle is sold with a way to receive EAS communications from at least x miles away" then make that the regulation and let manufacturers choose if that's a built in AM radio or not, don't just regulate "all cars must have AM radio" as you've just locked things into being the low quality solution until it becomes a big enough issue to actually go make a whole new federal law about it.
    - shkkmo 2y ago
      How is EAS over AM useful if people don't have AM recievers? FM (as currently used and licensed in the US) has much more limited range EAS is also much more limited than an AM station as is designed mostly for national level emergencies. It has limited ability to update it's message as the situation evolves and doesn't work at all for low level emergencies. EAS works great for nuclear war but not at all for a landside that makes a road impassable. > The only time AM is relevant is when the _ENTIRE_ radio communication infrastructure except AM is unusable due to the disaster This is simply false. I use AM regularly to check driving related alerts. > If you can't defend new regulation as worthwhile beyond "we, by happenstance, typically had it before so we should keep doing that" then you've failed to defend the new regulation. We have an existing system of AM emergency information that works well because every car has an station. It won't work in cars don't have AM radios. If you want to change the status quo, you need to demonstrate that you are already solving those issues in a new way. I'm all for findign a better solution here, but it has to be rolled out first. > If the goal is "you must guarantee that a vehicle is sold with a way to receive EAS communications from at least x miles away" First off, that isn't the goal. Secondly, that would be a horrible regulation that would be hard to test given how radio waves work with terrain. Generally reception has far more to do with location than it does with hardware ( at the antenna scale under discussion). Thirdly, this approach isn't capable of addressing the hundreds of local areas that would need to update their infrastructure to the new system.

by shkkmo 2y ago

zamadatix 2y ago

If you can't be bothered to pull over while driving by yourself in the nuclear apocalypse but you urgently need to get the latest emergency broadcast info despite FM being down (EAS also uses that) and cell towers being down then sure, it's an advantage to have it built in. In every other actually conceivable case... it's a worse answer from both the implementation and execution perspectives. If you can get into someone else's functioning vehicle you can also get to the one mandated to be in the trunk instead, where the radio is guaranteed to work without actually being able to start the car too.

shkkmo 2y ago
> If you can't be bothered to pull over while driving by yourself in the nuclear apocalypse Are trying to be silly? I'm much more concerned about drivers having access during a bizzard, earthquake, mudslide, forest fire or any of the other regularly encountered hazards about which AM radio is used to communicate with drivers. > If you can get into someone else's functioning vehicle you can also get to the one mandated to be in the trunk instead, An item physically attached to the vehicle is much more likely to be there. If you think mandating emergency radios is good, then go for it. Let's wait to see how well that plan works before removing a standard piece of safety equipment that has worked well for decades.
- zamadatix 2y ago
  Blizzards, earthquakes, mudslides, and forest fires don't take out FM radio EAS (many of these don't even take out cell phone EAS...), so why are you listing them as reasons AM in particular is needed? Perhaps was I not clear EAS already uses more than AM? The only time AM is relevant is when the _ENTIRE_ radio communication infrastructure except AM is unusable due to the disaster, such as after a hurricane or in nuclear war, and in those cases you don't urgently need the alert while driving down the highway. If you can't defend new regulation as worthwhile beyond "we, by happenstance, typically had it before so we should keep doing that" then you've failed to defend the new regulation. It either makes sense and should be done properly because of actual safety reasons or it isn't worth doing half assed and inconveniently just because it used to be a possibility. I'm a huge fan of regulation, especially around safety, but only when it targets the actual goal directly. If the goal is "you must guarantee that a vehicle is sold with a way to receive EAS communications from at least x miles away" then make that the regulation and let manufacturers choose if that's a built in AM radio or not, don't just regulate "all cars must have AM radio" as you've just locked things into being the low quality solution until it becomes a big enough issue to actually go make a whole new federal law about it.
  - shkkmo 2y ago
    How is EAS over AM useful if people don't have AM recievers? FM (as currently used and licensed in the US) has much more limited range EAS is also much more limited than an AM station as is designed mostly for national level emergencies. It has limited ability to update it's message as the situation evolves and doesn't work at all for low level emergencies. EAS works great for nuclear war but not at all for a landside that makes a road impassable. > The only time AM is relevant is when the _ENTIRE_ radio communication infrastructure except AM is unusable due to the disaster This is simply false. I use AM regularly to check driving related alerts. > If you can't defend new regulation as worthwhile beyond "we, by happenstance, typically had it before so we should keep doing that" then you've failed to defend the new regulation. We have an existing system of AM emergency information that works well because every car has an station. It won't work in cars don't have AM radios. If you want to change the status quo, you need to demonstrate that you are already solving those issues in a new way. I'm all for findign a better solution here, but it has to be rolled out first. > If the goal is "you must guarantee that a vehicle is sold with a way to receive EAS communications from at least x miles away" First off, that isn't the goal. Secondly, that would be a horrible regulation that would be hard to test given how radio waves work with terrain. Generally reception has far more to do with location than it does with hardware ( at the antenna scale under discussion). Thirdly, this approach isn't capable of addressing the hundreds of local areas that would need to update their infrastructure to the new system.