Engineering News

What a load of crap! You can't hear my wife's Chrsyler 300C AWD Hemi, either. Or my 7 Series BMW. Modern cars don't make any noise.

The reason hybrids and electric cars get into so many accidents is because they are being driven by tree-huggers and liberals, who are probably the world's worst drivers.

Just as rebuttal (as if one were really necessary) I'm a card-carrying Liberal and after 30+ years of driving I've not had even a fender-bender.

Guess I'm too busy getting in touch with my feelings and weeping about whale hunts to get road rage and steer into another car because of its Dubya "Miss Me Yet?" bumper sticker.

I think a bigger issue is people so entranced trying to text, talking on their cell phone or listening to their I-pod with their ear buds screwed into their ears.

Yesterday, I went grocery shopping, and the local boy scouts had a brat/hamburger stand outside the grocery store to raise money.

On the entrances and exits of the grocery store, they have "Watch out for Pedestrians" signs.

As I was sitting at the picnic table eating my brat, one of these tree lover hybrid owner drove right over and through the sign before she stopped. She did finally stop when the noise from running over the sign stop making a sound. (because it happened to come out the back)

The manager of the store had to fill out an accident report, the tree loving a$$ complained about that. Being only 25 feet away I heard that and said is there anybody under the car. Only then did she turned white as a sheet.

Give them spoked rims and clip baseball cards to them like we did to our bikes when we were kids.

at lower speeds hybrid and electric cars cause too many accidents.

WRONG! cars don't cause accidents, careless drivers cause accidents. I will grant that a pedestrian or cyclist might get in front of a vehicle that they do not hear, but there is a simple solution: put your favorite sound bite on your cd player and hook it to an under-hood speaker. I have an awesome clip of an 80,000 lb Kenworth coming down Cloudcroft Hill with the jake-brake singing. Another of a fly-by by a Merlin-powered P-51 Mustang. Some of you might like the sound of a Maserati accelerating out of a turn, or the rumble of a Harley. These hybrids can sound like whatever you want them to sound like.

Yes ... but if the pedestrian appares to be a local bunny ...
I was in the winter at remote work site - "untouced" nature
surroundings - before going to sleep i thought i took a drive
around the site ... so on my way back THE S.H. _|..|_ was
sitting at the center of the road ... i flashed the lights and
pressed the horn cople of times - it barely noticed anything
when i drove on emergency lights (headlight off) 5-15km/h
it lazyly took a course forward staying in the middle of the
road ... so after been jerking like this 4 3 2 5 times i got enough

i came out of car and used the most harsh language i've
ever heard for some 2 minutes - then when i took a breath
for another word-storm the bunny slowly turned his head
over his shoulder - glanced at me - as if i had some serious
prblems turned left and skipped off the road to the field
WOW (what a release ^_^)

And I wonder how many of those pedestrians/cyclists were wearing iPods or equivalents? I believe the issue is that other people can not hear them coming.

It used to be that roads were for vehicles, I was taught at an early age that pedestrians ventured on to them at their own risk! How did that all change so that now the driver is responsible for hitting jay walkers.

Motor vehicle drivers are licenced. Pedestrians, cyclists and horse riders are not.

Pedestrians, cyclists and horse riders are not.
Once got a ticket for running a red light on a bicycle, first thing the cop asked was "where is your license ". Of course it was in Texas.

Whether a license is required or not, one still has to obey the laws of the highway.

No! I was exiting the campus on a Sunday morning with no traffic on the road and i slowed down and came to a stop (had good balance in those days) and proceeded forward, I was ticketed because i had long hair and the cop was a real country boy with the cowboy hat and all the trimmings, in those days it was good ole boys vrs hippies,

That will happen, I had a friend going to school at UW-Euclare. He was visiting UW-Madison Wisconsin, in the late Sixties, maybe early seventies. he was in a bar tipping a few brews, and outside there were riots going on about the War in Veitnam. He walked outside to see what was going on and was arrested. He mentioned he was on the wrong side of the street. If only he would have had his brew on the other side, he wouldn't have gotten arrested, because that side was off campus.

Initially I agreed with most of the comments here, but then I watched the embedded video of the Toyota Prius.

That video creeps me out. I'm beginning to think that the car actually is responsible. That car sounds like its belongs in a dystopian Ridley Scott Tron/I Robot/Logan's Run kind of movie where the cars are used for population control by killing pedestrians.

("Look out, lady! That car is trying to kill you!")

The whole thing is a conspiracy by Big Oil. Tree huggers are not dismayed by the outrageous cost of a hybrid or electric car, and buy them in spite of all their disadvantages (although only 10% of current owners say they would buy another).

So Big Oil had to come up with something else--they probably ordered one of their pet senators to make up this silly rule about noise. Big Oil figures that even the most rabid tree hugger won't drive something that goes beep...beep...beep or vroom, vroom.

Actually, they should make hybrid cars blare "I can't drive 55" by Sammy Hagar out speakers in front of the car. In this case, however, the song title would have a completely different meaning. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10X3zJpMDMo

Horn Broken, Watch for Finger!

oh, oh. soon to be a government mandate that all electric vehicles has to have playing cards fastened to the fender of the car, and fashion in a way that the cards makes contact to the spokes of the wheel.

sorry wcfloyd. just read your response

Do you really think anyone will pay any attention to whatever noise they decide to use.

I have a Chevy pickup with the 454 engine and just barely legal exhaust system. I very seldom drive it on the streets. I use it mostly off road. But its large and loud. But people still step in front of it or walk down the center of the drive aisle when I do need to drive it somewhere. These same people would probably step in front of a Monster truck like Big Foot if it was driven on the street. They are to caught up in their own little worlds to pay attention to their surroundings.

Just look at how many idiots walk into fountains and other obstacles because they are playing with a phone instead of paying attention to where they are walking.

We should all be writing our Representatives& telling them we don't need this regulation.

Ask a Cop (professional driver)how Manny times they can recall a Police Cruiser with it's lights flashing, and sirens blaring, being involved in wreck. Granted high speed pursuit has additional risks. Even parked on side of the road, with emergency lights flashing people relish the opportunity to plow into Cops, and there cars. If only Legislators could enact laws to require responsibility, and awareness our roads would be a much safer place. I have been driving 100% electric for the past five years, and I'm never going back, even if I have to hot wire Horn relay.

We have a Harley Davidson owner that lives 6 houses down from us. The whole neiborhood knows when he fires it up in the morning.

Southpark didn't a spoof on people like these. (Of which I tend to agree)

I believe the episode was called "The "f" word".

If the government convinces us that they are hard at work eliminating every single thing that can cause anyone physical or emotional pain, they can keep raising our taxes, getting bigger, and going deeper in debt.

Yeah, noises work really well. Ever notice how everyone stops what they're doing and investigates, when someone's car alarm goes off in a parking lot?

How about the noisy anti theft devices at the exits of stores? Yawn.

The injuries probably happen because the cars are so tiny and non threatening, that nobody believes they could be hurt by one. Some of those real itsy bitsy electrics, I could probably kick over on it's side without trying too hard.

Car alarms are now called "the sounds of the city" in most urban neighborhoods. Sort of like barking dogs and gunshots. Everybody ignores them.

If they force hybrid cars to make noise, everybody will ignore them, too.

As for tiny cars, in Amsterdam, roving gangs of teenagers used to pick up Smart cars and throw them in the canals. Why? Because they could, I guess. http://www.dutchamsterdam.nl/707-amsterdam-smart-car-canals

I wonder if battery acid spills into the canals and kills all of the fish and wildlife.

Hooligans like this don't care about anything other than where their next fix will come from. They have total disregard or respect for themselves or anything else. One can't expect them to think about collateral consequence to their actions.

Reconnecting to the OP, this might actually be a very good time where a quiet car would come in handy. You could sneak up on them and leave tire tracks on their backs without them hardly knowing what hit them.

I think the "green" technologies are going to get better as time goes on. I sure wouldn't mind not having to buy gasoline anymore...........or having affordable solar that could get me off the grid. The problem that the government is having, is that they still don't realize that they can't mandate something, and force it to automatically be feasible, affordable, or be something that people are even interested in. They need to stop spending money trying.

You got that right. Wait'll all these tree huggers see what happens to the value of their hybrids when their battery turns into a brick, and has to be replaced for $10,000. One of them--the Tesla (http://theunderstatement.com/post/18030062041/its-a-brick-tesla-motors-devastating-design)--has a battery that turns into a brick if you let it completely discharge, and then it costs $40,000 to replace. Even if it's brand new! So don't park it at the airport when you leave on vacation.

They have to solve problems like that before anybody but tree huggers will buy them.

I am a great believer in solar. In fact, I wrote a solar manual for Mother Earth News years ago, and built a house that faced south so I could install solar panels. But I never did, because the cost didn't make sense. But photovoltaic panels are getting better every day, and the day may soon come when houses can heat, cool and power themselves.

I have a battery-powered trimmer.

I looked at a battery-powered lawnmower at Sears today, but it cost too much.

Like you say, it's just a matter of time, and legislation forcing them down our throats doesn't help.

Not at all. When the government picks one company and one technology to bet on, it doesn't level the playing field, it decimates it. Competing, and quite possibly superior, technology, and the people that are working on it, are most likely completely cut out of sources of financing......................from anywhere. Due to government intervention, (hand picking the winners and losers), some very promising stuff is likely dying on the vine.

I went on a rant, about government, after reading it saw the context drifted and decided to put it in a more on topic thread.

here

This new technology with collision avoidance systems and smart GPS should render this a moot point....What about deaf people, they can't hear any noise, and the blind, and dogs, and children....If the car can sense something in it's path and stop on it's own, I think this is better, we already have enough noise pollution, why add to the problem with gratuitous sound?

http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2011/oct/27/getting-smart/

I have found that a big red V10 powered F250 super duty with a strait pipe exhaust, no cat cons either, along with big grippy 33" tires tends to greatly reduce collisions with anything that can see or hear.

If they cant see or hear that the big grippy tires make it easy to role right over them and get away!

While I'm sure we all incorporate hearing into our driving unconsciously, it is, primarily, poor defensive driving habits that are the cause of most accidents. That and careless driving habits, like fiddling with something in the car (cell phones, stereo, etc.) while driving. No one seems to complain that bicycles or pedestrians are too quiet. A government mandate seems silly to me.