Pedestrian Warning

when i'm driving, i watch for pedestrians and bikes. when i'm walking, i watch for cars and bikes. when i'm biking, i watch for cars and pedestrians. it's not that hard to do, for most people. unfortunately, there's always those few...

 

Is this just a Plug in issue? Or does my Prius C have this warning speaker. I have been hearing that electric humming in my sleep. I thought it was just one of the side effects of driving a Prius.

 

Your c has it. :mod:

 

Just a few days ago, my son was almost run over by a Volkswagon gasoline car parked next to our van while I was loading the all the kids. It must have been in stealth mode since it made absolutely no sound whatsoever. Why doesn't it have a sound machine? My son would not have been helped by any sound anyway since he's too little to know that means a car is coming. I was surprised by the motion of the car, but not concerned in any way. I kept my little one safe as was my responsibility.

This is pure hysteria about an imagined risk. It is reminiscent of when steam locomotives were invented and they tried to keep them from going over about 25 MPH since it was believed that going over that would cause instant death. These days they would make a law preventing progress due to the imagined risk just as they have done here.

It is the driver's responsibility to make sure he doesn't run over a pedestrian. Likewise, it is the pedestrian's responsibility to watch out where they are going. (I've never seen a right-of-way save a person's life.) The likelihood of running someone over due to lack of car sound is so small as to be indistinguishable from zero. If a pedestrian is hit by a very slow moving silent-but-deadly car it is more likely due to some other factor, such as texting or talking on the phone.

 

1. Blind people cannot just pay closer attention. It's not all about dumb kids texting and walking. Some people rely on sound to know whether a car is coming, and part of living in a society is that we look out for the best interests of all people. Yes, drivers should be paying close enough attention that it's never an issue. But we all know that just isn't the case, and pretending otherwise is a pipe dream.

2. I don't see any real downside to adding this sound. It's not like it's impeding progress in any way. The only real argument against it is that some people find it a little annoying. I'm sure over the years they'll figure out sounds that are more palatable for a bigger portion of people. Maybe it really is an issue that is nearly negligible, but if having this barely noticeable (to me) sound saves just one person from being hit, then it's worth it.

I guess I understand why people might think it's unnecessary, or that it's silly to be mandated on just certain types of cars, but I just do not get why people are so vehemently against it. What's the big deal?

 

Yes, we should all look where we're going and yield right of way when and where it's appropriate.

Still, drivers with a sense of entitlement are by far the biggest danger.

 

Has anyone discover more details about the system? Would love to replace it with the Jetsons car sound, using maybe an arduino and a VSS wire if it's exposed.

 

i totally just thought that noise was some part of the hybrid system!

i second Electric Charge's hope that in the future we might be able to pick our vehicle noise. the car already sounds a bit like the jetsons, especially when breaking, so i say we embrace the annoyance and go full-on jim carrey:

 

I'm more than willing to build something, and post instructions, which allows you to replace the sound, just need to know where the speakers are, what kind of input signal it wants, and where the VSS wire is in engine bay area (assuming it isn't digital). I think the speaker info would be the biggest help.

 

there are a few threads on this with pics. speaker is in the front left, below the drivers side headlamp. difficult to reach unless you remove the plastic fender lining at least partially and it's right there in front of the tire. many people have disconnected it, but i don't recall anyone installing a switch or additional sounds.

 

So I guess the question is, is it a self-contained unit, meaning the audio source/generator is part of the speaker set, or is it just a dumb speaker, with the audio source coming from somewhere else.

 

The thread:
Vehicle Proximity Notification System (VPNS) | PriusChat

Has a photo showing the connector to the noise generating speaker. The photo of the actual speaker connector is blurry, but it appears to be a 2 wire connector. If it is, then it is unlikely to be anything but a speaker, since a vehicle speed input is needed to change the volume and pitch of the warning tone.

 

Thanks, it does look like it is just a speaker (with or without amp? it's pretty big). So now I need to figure out if it's the entune hardware playing the sound (will have to pull the fuse to try I guess), or if there is a dedicated module mounted somewhere. Wondering if anyone who replaced their audio system still has this feature.

 

I never noticed any sound so after watching that Japanese video link I had my wife drive the C while I walked beside it.

Dang - it sounded like something from that Gerry Anderson 70's British TV show UFO. You know, the show with the moonbase women in purple wigs...

 

Hopefully someone will upload a clip of the c to YouTube with the noise... the Japanese video sounds a bit... simulated. So far the only really clear video I've seen is of a Gen III entering a garage and it's filmed from inside the car.

Clearly I've never heard mine from outside and I'm not yet anywhere near letting anyone else drive it.

 

Actually they were right. Cars (and trains and airplanes) going over 25 mph kill 30,000 people every year in the US alone. This is 10 times worse than those 9/11 attacks. It is like a small town wiped out every year. Those old engineers were correct traveling over 25 would cause a huge number of deaths and it does. No one seriously thought the speed alone would harm people, that is an old wives tale. Anyone with an education knew it was the sudden stop or a collision that would do the damage. Horse racing jockeys went over 25 for years before there were trains. After all they knew enough engineering and science back then to design the a steam locomotive and the steel plants to make the raw materials. They were right.

But what has happened is that we as a society have accepted the loss of 30,000 per year as the price for transportation and just don't care. Could you imagine people excepting any other product like that? What if cell phones randomly exploded the took your head off? I doubt we'd put up with even 1,000 such explosions per year. But 1,000 is "nothing" compared to the price we pay to travel over 25 mph.

Here is a paper from the US Census Slightly dated but you see that my 30K number is conservative.
http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s1103.pdf

 

This topic was discussed here:

Vehicle Proximity Notification System (VPNS) | PriusChat

 

OK, at least the good news is that we have gone from 45K deaths per year to 34K per year from 1990 to 2009 in the United States. People forget that the most dangerous thing you can do is drive or ride in a car. It is amazing that drivers text on their cell phones, etc as if driving or riding in a car is as mundane as walking in your back yard. Unfortunately (or fortunately), I have been driving for 40 years, and sometimes you have to step back and notice the traffic congestion that exists today that did not exist years ago. There is no room for error when you drive an interstate highway today compared to yesterday. It is good that cars are much safer today that years ago because the margin for error that existed in decades past is long gone.