OT: electric cars (one for Brian?)

I believe rules are to be introduced for electric cars to be fitted with sound generators so pedestrians can hear them coming. I believe this has been the subject of a campaign.

Yesterday I was thinking about this and it seems to me you can hear the sound of the tyres before hearing the sound of the engine. Is a sound generator needed?

Reply to
Scott
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not when wummin drivers run into you at low speed ....

Reply to
Seaside digs ...

fecked if I'm fitting it to my lecy 15.5 mph moped.....If I have to all pushbikes should have to ....

Reply to
Seaside digs ...

Surely electric cars are the way forward to also cut down on noise pollution in our towns, cities and countryside?

Yes, electric cars aren't silent - you can hear the tyre noise and the whine of the electric motors.

Reply to
alan_m

But at low speed they *are* quieter than IC vehicles. You might just as well say there is no need for a reversing sounder on HGVs because the tyres make a sound.

Reply to
newshound

spot on ...

Reply to
Seaside digs ...

Assuming you're not hard of hearing or deaf. I'm not quite the latter but definitely the former, with an aid in each ear. Even so, I often don't hear a car coming up behind me when I'm out walking in the lanes around here.

Reply to
Chris Hogg

There is no need on HGVs, few people ever got run over and the majority weren't blind but were stupid. Also its far better to put mirrors and cameras on them so the driver can see rather than relying on a pedestrian/cyclist actually thinking.

We have enough evidence here about the number of people unable to think.

That's before you take into account the number of deaf people.

Reply to
dennis

When I was a kid in the 1950's I understood it was a legal requirement for push-bikes to be fitted with a bell. If that's still true, nobody seems to take any notice and it's obviously not enforced. You could also get a noise-generator that fitted onto the front forks and had a bit of semi-rigid plastic that stuck out into the spokes, making a noise as you cycled along something a moped.

Reply to
Chris Hogg

... when sold.

Reply to
Andy Burns

Bloody ponce!

A folded Park Drive packet stuck between the Sturmy Archer three speed cable and rear fork used to work effectively and was cost free. I do recollect thinking at the time that I was doing my bit to save the planet not going for those plastic gismo's. :-)

The Park Drive packet had the advantage that it became dust or was thrown off the bike at around the same time as the rider got sick of the stupid racket.

AB

Reply to
Archibald Tarquin Blenkinsopp

They would be, if we had batteries that worked as well as fuel in terms of range cost and recharge rates.

We dont. Nor are there any in the pipeline

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

And the most annoying sound around my way is when HGVs back around a corner at the bottom of my road emitting a high pitch beeping sound at

5:30 to 6:00 am to deliver goods to the corner mini supermarket.

I wonder what the noise generator will be set to produce and at what level. Certain frequencies are just annoying and/or give no real indication as to the direction from which the vehicle is approaching[1]. As to volume level, I know of at least 3 elderly people when visiting their houses their TV are set to a very high volume level. Are the volume levels going to be set to accommodate the hard of hearing who currently possibly couldn't even hear a petrol car approaching?

I once watched a documentary where the properties of the blues and twos on emergency vehicles was being discussed. It was suggested that in busy urban environments the direction from which a emergency vehicle was approaching was often hard to determine. By interspersing the two tone siren with a low frequency "shhhh" sound other road users could then establish the direction. The higher frequency two tone siren gave the longer range indication that an emergency vehicle was in the vicinity whereas the low frequencies helped other drivers establish position.

Reply to
alan_m

That's so you can pretend you're riding a motorbike, not to warn pedestrians.

Reply to
Max Demian

I remember that proposal, but it doesn't seem to have happened.

Reply to
Max Demian

Having a warning sound means the driver doesn't have to bother looking.

Reply to
Max Demian

Quite, but it also achieved that result.

Reply to
Chris Hogg

We are currently staying in a village which has a farm opposite. Directly opposite is the yard where they store the silage, and they use JCBs to pile it up every so often. And, to quote our neighbour "those bloody tractors seem to spend more time in reverse than going forwards" - there have been some days when it's "bleep bleep bleep" from before dawn to after dusk. Recently they seem to have been a lot better: the only noise is from the enormous artics delivery cattle feed as they try to reverse into the yard (wrecking the village green in the process). Oh, and then the hour or so of constant drone while the lorry unloads the feed into the farm's storage vats. No-one could describe the village as quiet or clean :-(

I've heard some ambulances which have a rapid warbling (*), with interspersed white noise (or maybe pink or brown noise with more lower frequencies). But in a street lined with lots of buildings, the biggest problem is that reflections off those buildings are almost as loud as the direct sound, so it is very difficult to get a direction fix.

The funniest sound is on fire engines (fire trucks) in the USA - certainly in Massachussetts - where they make a noise like a very loud bullfrog, which sounds utterly absurd. But if it conveys the message "I'm *over here* and I need to come through" then that's OK.

(*) There's the slow rising and falling wail, ramping up in several stages to increasingly "urgent" phaser sounds as the ambulance gets into heavier traffic.

Reply to
NY

Part of the problem is that the Highway Code isn't "strong" enough when it comes to cyclists overtaking a vehicle on the side that it is indicating to turn. It's too nampy-pamby and ineffectual, rather like Joyce Grenfell in her sketches where she's a teacher of unruly toddlers. And road layouts actually direct cyclists into their own lane on the *left* of motor vehicles, so left-turning vehicles have to cross (and give way to) cyclists that want to go straight on, rather than being allowed to stop in the normal place, as close to the kerb as possible so they don't *need* to give way to anything, and to make cyclists do what other vehicles have to do: wait behind a left-turning vehicle until it has turned.

What is needed is much stronger warning signs on the back of large vehicles: "You MUST NOT overtake on the left of this vehicle. If you do so when it is indicating to turn left, is will be YOUR FAULT if you are killed or seriously injured."

It really is time that we stopped pandering to cyclists and make them have to obey all the same rules as other road vehicles, without any concessions or special cycles-only lanes which require other vehicles head of them have to give way to the cyclists. By all means have cycles-only lanes, but discontinue them n yards before every junction to allow turning vehicles to position themselves properly to avoid the need to check on the side that you are turning.

Reply to
NY

Depending on the background noise where you are [1]?

Whilst that can be the case if the motor is under power, sometimes they can be silent and will be if like my EV, run on DC (so no PWM frequency to sound though the motor). ;-)

You have only got to move about as a pedestrian or a cyclist to know that some people reply on their ears too much as a form of warning of your presence. ;-(

Cheers, T i m

[1] We often walk the dogs along a gravel towpath and quite often even the sound of cycle tyres on the ground isn't enough to warn us of their presence (when they are approaching from behind and why they are supposed to use their bell etc).
Reply to
T i m

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