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The Best Science Writing Online 2012
Showcasing more than fifty of the most provocative, original, and significant online essays from 2011, The Best Science Writing Online 2012 will change the way...
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Kids today may be more familiar with the sound of a rushing highway than a rushing river. But imagine that the internal combustion engine could be set aside and we could design the soundscape of our future. What aural environment would you choose for traffic?
For the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the answer is that new cars should sound like old cars.
Hybrid and electric vehicles can be so quiet that people outside the vehicle can’t hear them. So these too-quiet cars will be required to sound something like this [sound three].
The Obama administration wants a million electric vehicles on the road by 2015. Slow sales of cars like the Chevy Volt and Tesla Model S may keep that number from being reached. But there are still hundreds of thousands of EVs and hybrids on the road today. It’s hoped that the new rule will help prevent thousands of pedestrian and cyclist deaths.
But the rule also hews to a possibly outdated tradition, like people who set their cell phone ring tone to sound like an old rotary phone. And it’s wasting a chance to reimagine what our cars, roads and even cities could sound like.
—David Biello
[The above text is a transcript of this podcast.]
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11 Comments
Add CommentAdding to the noise of a quiet machine is dumb.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis noise rule noise will be seen to be as quaint and silly as the Brits law requiring a foot-carried flag or lantern precede a car in town.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locomotive_Acts#The_Locomotive_Act_1865_.28Red_Flag_Act.29
Well normally this author is someone I disagree with but this one is true. Having driven most models of Electric and even hybrid vehicles, from car rentals, it is definitely a challenge to get used to a car that makes no noise.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe author mentions outside the car too. It is true, pedestrians, especially blind ones, totally depend on what they hear from cars to cross streets. Some kind of noise needs to be there, just as an odor is added to natural gas so we humans can detect a leak with our noses, something must be added to those EVs to make sure human ears can detect the presence of cars. It is simply practical, not a throw back to an old era as some would suggest. Humans have only 5 senses and the only one that can pick up stimulation from any direction would be hearing.
It would make sense for the sound to be a short-range one - which nearby pedestrians can hear, but which does not add to the general long-range ambient noise of the city.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOf course a lot of pedestrians are listening to their personal stereos or phones and so presumably pay more visual attention to traffic anyway.
Perhaps we should add noise to bikes as well? Lots of them zip along the streets in relatively stealthy silence, and they can really do some damage if they hit you too...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think the answer is not noisier cars, but smarter ones. The technology to make self driving cars is quickly advancing, and such cars are vastly more aware of their surroundings than are human drivers, and better able to handle them. I suggest directed sound, since it is possible to aim sound at a particular person, the car should just recognize pedestrians in possible danger zone, and zap a quick, not too annoying, "car approaching" notification of some kind. This could then be modified based on location, for example on a busy city street it is turned off so as to not bombard people.
Just broadcasting sound in all directions seems very old fashioned when much better options are feasible.
I think the Jetson's flying car sound would be a fun sound.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere are people now who walk into traffic (noise making type) without noticing vehicles because their tiny minds are focused on their cell phone , or such modern gaget.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSigh ... yet another intervention that will back-fire ... pun intended. I bought a Prius precisely because it was quiet, as I imagined what our future would be like without all the noise pollution. Now we want to add pollution back to our environment.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs others have noted in other commentary, there are plenty of cars out there that don't make discernable noise when approaching - something that has been engineered into these cars as desirable for modern progress. Perhaps we should just go back to 2-stroke engines rather than quieter 4-strokes, if we want to make noise. If a noise-maker is good for the goose, it should be good for the gander - let's require noise-makers for all vehicles, bikes included - a bike can do significant damage to a pedestrian. When I commuted by bike, I did use either a bell or horn, but those tools of the road seem to have vanished. We need to bring them back for safety's sake.
Oh, and for those who are deaf, we should also require something that flashes lights, like many bike-riders. I can just see it now - a parade of all vehicles with multiple flashers - should put on quite a show!
Now, for those both deaf & blind, we'll need something to get their attention - how about odor? We should make all vehicles smell like ... urine? diesel? Fresh bread?
Well, I hope you can see where this is going. Legislating noise-makers is going in the wrong direction.
Instead, we need people to pay attention to what they are doing - if on the road, or next to it, stop talking (cell phone), stop playing with your electronic toys (cell phone, ipod, etc.), and notice the world around you. I do. (I don't play radio in car, don't drink & drive (coffee or otherwise), look all ways when driving or walking, etc. - I've been rear-ended & am more aware now.)
And, as a final note, I won't be buying a noise-maker in future - so much for encouraging alternative energy ... just like promoting ethanol, only to find it sucks corn out of the food market creating grain shortages, and gunks up any number of engines not designed to run on alcohol (ruined my motorcycle & marine engines).
Going by the sound of traffic along the road where I live,it seems that a lot of the noise is from the Tyres.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI saw the demo of some electric cars here, the salesman moved a cargo van on the exposition floor indoors, right behind me and I didn't noticed until another customer told me to watch out, the van was 20 cm away from me, I think that would have been really dangerous on an open street and with a less careful driver, now if the car has a sound (I would opt for the sound of an alien tank on a video game I used to play), people would be safer, double that for blind persons, and since it is all electronics you would be able to choose the sound of your car (a ferrari sound on a 10hp economy electric? no problem!)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisas an add in, a menu of funny noises would be "nails on blackboard", "teeth grinding", "horse hoves"...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe article tells a very important thing that all the new cars updated with the latest technologies must add certain things to there design. They should build there car in such a way that it should sounds like a old car. Because these new cars are so quiet in their sound that no one can here them from outside. So need change this as early as possible to minimize the accidents.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.orangemotors.net/volvo-repair.html