What kind of warning sound would you want for your car?

I prefer the sounds of:

• swarm of stinging insects
• Verdi
• mosquitos
• Mozart
• small, ankle biting dog
• Queen of the Night
• angry cat
• Wagner opera
• dragster burn-out
• O Fortuna

Bob Wilson

 

As long as it's from the Latin for I sing, and not Canto as in short for "Canto-pop", I'm not too concerned. People tunelessly warbling "I love you, I shouldn't have dumped you, please come back" (the lyrics to every Cantonese pop song ever written) would be awful.

I agree: that doesn't work at all.

If there must be a noise (and there must, because Detroit), the kind of whine you get from electric cars in films set in the future should do the job, surely. Basically, like the noise a Prius makes when decelerating. I can't see anything wrong with that.

 

If it were the only car on the road, your classical and opera suggestions would be perfectly acceptable.

But imagine the main street of a busy road. Open each of those YouTube links in separate tabs, and play all of them at once. It wouldn't be a pleasant experience.

 

If the point is to warn pedestrians cars are coming, this soundtrack should do.

It should stop before the shotgun blasts, no point in confusing them.

 

The OEM "MeepMeep" attempt at a horn is quite sufficient to warn prospective victims that they're about to step into the space-time continuum where I'm intending to drive, and if that isn't sufficient, then they deserve (and usually get) the "Bad Boy" Laundry Experience (ffwd to 1:30

 

just let people download their own like a phone ring.

i heard my first prius today after 6 years of the proximity sensor while walking across an intersection.
it was pretty quiet. i recognized it, but couldn't tell where it was coming from until i saw it creeping through the stop sign.

 

So that people know you're a car, would you not need people to download from a choice of approved sounds?

 

good point. but honestly, is a song going to make them look? if they want cars to sound like cars, it's an engine sound, everyone gets the same thing. record the quietest gas engine on the market, and require ev's to duplicate the sound and sound level.

 

I thought I remembered there were different frequencies required depending on the vehicle speed. Otherwise, what about this?

 

mine is the same from 1-15mph.

 

This is probably what I was thinking of.



From https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.dot.gov/files/documents/812347-minimumsoundrequirements.pdf

 

Here's one which might interest the OP, I'd mentioned it a while ago, and this vid show how this might be achieved!

 

I rarely have a need to use my horn. I'm talking about not remembering the last time... not even to acknowledge a friend as I drove by their house while they were outside. A simple wave sufficed.

Maybe I'm just fortunate enough to live in an area around other people who I don't need to audibly assault.

 

Perhaps we could get the Havana noise maker?

Bob Wilson

 

Dog, aggressive would make almost anyone look. There are mountain lion voice samples on the web that really ought to have similar effects. I heard mountain lion tending to home territory once 'in the field'. Not ignorable

 

Australia has much to offer here. I would recommend the koala's mating call.

But all these noises seem to be replacements for horns, when what we're looking for is a constant noise to replace engine noise. That's why I think the whine that you get in electric cars in films set in the future (or Priuses slowing down) would do the job fine. Anything more just gets irritating.

@tochatihu , I assume Kunming is the same as most major Chinese cities, and that street-cleaning trucks play an 8-bit version of Happy Birthday at ear-splitting volumes.

It's horrible. And imagine thousands of them, all playing different tunes (Happy Birthday, For He's a Jolly Good Fellow, It's a Small Small World, Greensleeves, Rule Britannia (all songs I've heard from street sweepers and garbage trucks in China) etc), on a major road. It wouldn't stop people from getting run over: people would be throwing themselves in front of trucks just to make the noise stop.

I get the need for a noise to stop blind people from getting run over. But it doesn't need to be some sort of hideous screech or roar. Just a hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm is fine. One of the joys of electric cars should be that they'll make our cities quieter. I get that that isn't as important as reducing air pollution or CO2 emissions, but still, it's something that would be nice. Why ruin it?

Also, these days, speakers can be directional. So speakers at the front and rear of the car that just emit the hum in the direction the vehicle is travelling would meet the safety needs but wouldn't lead to unnecessary noise pollution.

 

Listening to a baseball championship game (quite a nice one actually), I'd suggest that some announcer exclaiming "well hit...and she's gone" would get people to look.

That being the goal. Get people to look. Don't see this as just for unsighted folks (they are cautious). There are many more 'texting' targets who have vision but waste it, walking into the squishing zone.

Koalas sound like me, working a nasal obstruction. Ain't nobody gonna look up for that.

 

Fortunately, I've not heard the Prius Prime noise generator except once next to a wall. For me, the cabin remains quiet in ordinary traffic.

Based on the history of these noise makers, a lot of time and effort was wasted on something that does not improve the safety of the vehicle and driver. In contrast, pedestrian detection and collision avoidance systems do.

The sad thing is A-pillar blocking of pedestrians remains a real yet unquantified hazard.

Bob Wilson