I, as many before have posted. Why the continuous beeping in reverse? Wouldn't one beep suffice? My suggestion to the engineers would be...If you must have the car do something extra electronicly while backing-up, have it mute the radio speakers. My guess is that more accidents would be prevented by the forced silence, than by the distracting beeping...just a thought
No idea but it's Toyota's way of dealing with abnormal layouts (It also beeps if you have a 6-spd manual transmission Toyota with R to the left of 1st gear)
I think the default is continuous beeping because some folks would ignore a single beep. Most of us are owners / lessees of our cars and drive them on a nearly daily basis. We know the car. However, Toyota also sells a fair number of Prii for rental and fleet use where many folks would hop in and drive one for the first time.
I honestely believe the continious beeping contributed to an accident involving my wife's Lexus. I had the continious beep turned off on my Prius, I wanted her to have the dealership turn it off on her Lexus, but she said no. Then she backed into my son-in-laws suburban as she was backing out of the garage. The Lexus has a back-up camera and sensors on the rear bumper. I feel the continious beeping desensitized her and she did not realize the back-up sensors were alarming as she backed into his truck. Well, the crunch got her attention, and $5K worth of damage later, that continious beeping is now disabled! Had it been disable for the get-go, I believe that accident could have been avoided!
That would trigger just as many complaints as the continuous beeping and we'd make the exact same argument why we should have to put up with forced silence when we already know we've shifted into reverse and moving backwards. Just take it to the dealer and have them change it to one beep. I doubt it. People have backed into something even with the back-up camera so would you say the back-up camera desensitized her? People just suck at paying attention, even attentively. I still see drivers stopping at one car per green light when the sign clearly says 2 or 3 cars per green light.
As I've said many times before (familiar refrain): I like the beeping. It reminds me which gear I'm in, has saved my bacon once or twice. It's on for a few seconds when you're backing out of somewhere.
Two weeks ago I took my 2011 in for it's first service and (fortunately) remembered to ask them to change the reverse alarm from continuous beeping to single beep. Having driven several vehicles with audible collision sensors, the continuous beeping was rather nerve-wracking as I would always think I was about to hit something or someone. Now I jut hear the single beep and that's it. They didn't charge me as (how they put it) I was a new customer and they wanted me to be happy with my first experience with them (West Kendall Toyota in Miami - free plug for having me in and out of there in just under 45 minutes). It feels great now that the beeping is gone.
Absolutely! I'm still getting use to the car, so it's nice to make sure I know what gear I'm in. Shift lever forward for reverse... not easy for all to master right away without an audible reminder.
Plus there are external audible signals: A crunching sound from the front of the car indicates D, while screaming and honking from the back of the car indicates R. Tom
I went to Frank toyota here in San Diego yesterday, before I left I asked if they could just make it a single beep. they said yes and would do that on my next visit.
I just had my beep changed to a single beep today at the dealer. It took five calls to find a dealer willing to change it.. Cost me 15 bills but it was worth it, and only took them 5 mins.
Yes good point Tony, I have done both, the instructions are in our ScanGage forum. http://priuschat.com/forums/gen-iii...discussion/64406-scangaugeii-work-2010-a.html When you disable the reverse beep it still beeps once, which I can live with. When you disable the seatbelt beeps you will still get about 6 beeps and the warning light will remain on, this is what the NHTSA requires. What you disable are all of the extra beeps Toyota puts in to keep us all "extra safe".
Why didn't they put the beep on the outside to warn others you are backing up? I know I'm backing up. Is this some piece of legislation I missed someplace?
Exactly my thought. I have a long driveway. By the time I reached the end of it I was ready to shoot someone.
