How to disable the Prius "Artificial Engine" sound?

The VPNS completely ruins the "sneaking up on motherf***ers" selling point of the car. What is Toyota doing?!?!?

 

It is not a Federal requirement so I don't believe there is any additional legal liability. If you squash somebody's little crumb-snatcher and the sniveling, bed wetting attorneys find out that your safety feature is intact do they slink away?

 

You're right...it is.
Actually....it's somewhat dishonest as well.
Perhaps a better solution would be for you to take the car in and complain about the Darwin device...and have them roll their eyes and tell you that...no....(idiot!)...it's working correctly.
THEN carefully disable the device.
Documentation stays the same and you don't have to have the ^%$#$#!! dealer replace a piece/part that you willfully damaged.

As far as disabling the device and the court system???
If I were a bed-wetting, sniveling, bottom feeding tort attorney and I represented a bereaved client whose precious little munchkin was turned into parking lot pate by some cretin who willfully disabled the very safety feature that could have prevented this from happening??? And just because they didn't "like" the noise???

Gee...I do not know. I don't think I would want to go into that court room. It doesn't have anything to do with whether or not the "Federal Government" mandated the feature.....but hey...
If I ever get a Prius with this feature???
I think I'll just leave it alone.

YMMV.

 

Google: Pedestrian Safety Enhancement Act of 2010.

Bored government officials looking for a solution to a problem that may exist in theory.

I would much rather have a reverse plugable hybrid and I'm sure most people who lost electricity in the NE would also, but that's way too practical. What would the cost of components be, $5?

 

Just got my prius and I thought that was the brakes doing some odd regen thing! I actually like the sound. Sounds like a Cylon.

 

I guess you don't have any blind friends, then? (I do). The legislation was requested by the National Federation of the Blind, not by any government workers, bored or otherwise.

 

I only notice it when going through a fast-food drive-through.

 

Actually the legislation effort started under the GW Bush administration and I followed it closely since May 26, 2007. It was the first hybrid-skeptic claim that surprised me because it came from an 'earth mother' woman who later bought and now drives an NHW20 Prius. At the time, I soon learned the National Federation of the Blind was engaged in private meetings with the NHTSA who became fans. But it always had this problem, no dead bodies.

Even today, the two NHTSA 'reports' depend upon what at best looks to be very marginal data, small sample sets, to claim that in some maneuvers hybrids have an increased probability of a pedestrian accident. But the rates are so low that they are not found in the Fatality Analysis Reporting System data. There are fatal, Prius-pedestrian accidents but compared to:

• 32,885 deaths (2010) - 1.11 fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles
  • 4,280 pedestrian deaths (2010)
• 2,239,000 injured (2010)

But the blind advocacy groups had a powerful friend, Dave McCurdy who headed the "Alliance of Automobile Manufactures" and advocated for these noise makers. . . . Isn't that strange?

So let's take the way-back machine and what was going on? Oh yea, hybrid and specifically the Prius (2/3ds of all hybrids sold) was getting whacked by the USA automobile industry that with the exception of Ford, could not make a credible hybrid. Worse, preliminary and on going data suggests SUVs and pickup trucks are killing way more pedestrians than hybrids . . . killing them dead.

Now there are several technical approaches to reducing pedestrian accidents including radar and camera based, accident avoidance systems. They were just becoming available when this least effective technical solution, noise generation, was written into law. Yet curiously, the NHTSA is starting to find the cost is not proportional to the benefits claimed . . . the real risk-analysis team is starting to look at the problem.

A performance-based, pedestrian law makes sense. It should require quantified numbers of pedestrian accidents/mile for each make and model and THEN require manufactures to implement measurable mitigation plans. These could range from better mirrors and visibility systems for drivers; object and blind side detection, and even; accident avoidance systems based upon measured rates. Give them a 3-year, cycle summary with the previous 3-years being the benchmark for what the next 3-years must accomplish.

I'm expecting Prius pedestrian deaths with noise maker equipped Prius with no statistically different rate . . . possibly a slight increase because it may lull less sophisticated drivers to believe the noise enables cell-phone and texting. Nothing short of a noise so loud and irritating as to blast through ambient street noise will work and that would annoy and irritate the world which I suspect was the goal of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers.

The traffic safety data abused by flawed analysis for this bad law and the mandated solution was and remains a tragedy. The blind have been used as tools by anti-hybrid, USA manufacturers, to toss FUD and expense at hybrid makers, primarily Toyota. The least effective mechanism, 'noise', was mandated that doesn't cost much and delivers the same (noisy SUVs and pickup trucks remain disproportionate pedestrian killers.) Meanwhile, the blood on the streets continues unabated.

Bob Wilson

ps. I discourage disabling the noise maker because every accident in which these useless parts are working is a metric that refutes this flawed law. We are lab rats in an experiment and it needs to go to completion. Sometimes you have to let the experiment run its bloody course.

 

Hence the canvas-ripping Matra V12 sound...

 

In my stealthy 2011 with no noise maker, I'm very careful at gas stations - especially the full service station I frequent. The pump jockeys dash in & out of the little hut and I've had them run right in front of or into my moving Prius because it's silent. I don't want to injure any of the cute girls who pump gas.

 

A solution looking for a problem IMO.

For the first few months it did not bother me; but of late it does....

 

i'm not sure which is more irritating. the noisemaker pulling into my garage, or the rusty brakes backing out of my sloped driveway.

 

Very Nice!!!!

 

XLR8 downloaded... Thanks!

LOL I can't wait to take passengers with that app.

 

xlr8 downloaded as well....nps is annoying....i thought all cars come with a nps (ie the horn button on the steering wheel)...removed mine after 2 days... no jack needed- turn wheel all the way to the right- undo retaining bolts/clips on plastic under side- unplug from sensor (they even have a dummy plug so you dont have to leave the connector dangling

 

Good one! How about for WinPhone?

 

App downloaded

 

The App Store just got 99¢ of my money. I had to click LIKE on your post but only because they don't have a LOVE IT button. Now, I want to go idle around my neighborhood.

 

how do you hook it into the noisemaker?