Nobody hears the proximity warning

I took my car over to show it to my son tonight. He said, "I thought this thing has a proximity warning system". I said, "It does"! I moved it forward and said, "Can you hear it"? When you know the sound is there and listen for it you can hear it, otherwise, nobody notices. I would like some way to turn up the volume. I know others don't want the sound. I think it is a space-age sound and would like to turn it up where people can hear it. Otherwise, it is useless. It would also be very cool if you could change the sound.

 

I haven't heard it because I'm driving, but my wife has heard it twice. However, she can't explain the sound. So I'll have to let her drive it, so I can hear it !!!

 

Toyota should have gone with a smell. The car would emit like a rotting smell of cheese. Then the pedestrians look around like "what the hell is that smell," and then BAM they see your car.

 

Sounds like what I experience in a typical engine running car.
If you were seeing sudden startle reactions from people then I'd suspect it wasn't working but short of a siren is going to clear the pedestrians from in front of you.

 

i'm sure hey hear it.. it's there..

if not.. they're deaf.. or completely not paying attention. i just had this debate the other day about how stupid people can be.. and regardless of such a "safety system" installed in the vehicle.. it tends to be utterly useless.

here's the thread: http://priuschat.com/forums/prius-c-main-forum/106674-pedestrian-warning.html

i found it slightly annoying.. and as well as the uselessness with stupid people.. i just unplugged the thing.. if people want to be morons about walking in front of me.. i'll use the car horn.

that's something that you can't excuse pedestrians for not hearing... (unless they're deaf.. at which then the whole proximity system would still be useless)

 

may i ask how you unplug it?

 

Y'all might want to check out this link at National Federation of the Blind:

NFB - Committee on Automobile and Pedestrian Safety (CAPS)

The warning system is for them.

 

it's interesting how they start out talking about mfg's working to make quieter cars... and end up getting a bill from o'bama that only applies to ev and hybrid cars.

 

It wasn't Obama.
It was the Blind Community and the Congressmen looking for Votes.
And the House and Senate passed it.

 

I've not been overly impressed with people hearing the car approaching pedestrians either. I also don't understand why it is supposedly turned off if you are driving faster than 15 mph (since many bicyclists are driving at least that fast). They are the ones I worry about most.

Then again, I think a blind person will probably hear it. But the blind usually have a heightened sence of hearing to begin with and they, in fact, might hear my car even without the special new sound!

Many pedestrians do seem indifferent and careless. For some, you might need a Harley Davidson acceleration sound volume to make them look.

 

How many times do I have to friggin repeat myself, MOST people have the herd mentality of a cow....

You could have a GP-5 Diesel Horn going off 20 feet away and all they will do is ignore it, or turn around and then ignore it.
I call it Parking Lot Syndrome or PLS for short, most folk in a parking lot adopt a cow like mentality!
Sad, but true!

 

Sounds to me (no pun intended) like Toyota did their job.

They created a system that emits a warning sound, but is not intrusive or disturbing to most drivers or passengers of same said vehicle.

Isn't that the best of both worlds?

And I think it's really hard to prove or disprove the "value" of a system like this based simply on driving the vehicle around and noticing whether you think people are noticing it or not.

Like a lot of safety equipment, it is something that should be ignored or unintrusive, until it is needed. If you're driving around and it seems a lot of people aren't reacting? Kudo's to Toyota for finding a tone and balance that doesn't turn Prius into a rolling auditory joke. It's not designed to be like a Emergency Vehicle siren. It's designed to allow for an auditory output similar to existing ICE vehicles operating at speeds below 15 mph. And yes, I'd suspect like with any vehicle...sometimes people aren't going to notice it, even if it is there.

There is no way Toyota can create a system that would guarantee everyone coming near the car would notice it...unless they made it so annoying nobody would want it....

If it exists? Is working, but most of the time people aren't noticing it? That's about what you want. It's for those dangerous but rare moments, when maybe it's quiet enough in the surrounding enviroment to be heard....and pedesterian and motorist are NOT aware of each other. If it's blending in with the standard world around it, I'd say Toyota got it right. It's a vehicle proximity notification system...not a Siren.

 

We need a electrode sticking out the front with a big-ol-Tesla coil to spit out one hell of a spark

bzzzzzt, get the hell out my way!!!

Mike ound:

 

my friend who owns a gen3 prius mistook the PIP warning sound for the normal inverter whine. i was driving behind him while he was walking in a parking lot, so it's pretty much the intended use case. so i guess he was able to hear it but it did not seem like a 'special' sound to him.

 

LOL!

The heard mentality of a cow?

Well in defense of humanity in general, I'd say in my surburban neighborhood, most pedestarians will look up if I honk, and at least stop chewing their cud.

But yeah, it doesn't mean they will get out of the way, even if they notice me.

I can't "prove" this one way or another. I have no statistics, charts or graphs, BUT it seems to me like people in general are often just less connected to the environment around them. When I was a kid? It was absolutely DRILLED into my head, that I needed to be aware of cars and vehicles on or near streets. And I should respect them.

Today? I don't know if it is "Herd Mentality" or what, but people in general seem oblivious to the idea that a vehicle can hurt them. As a driver you really have to be alert, because people will just walk right out infront of you, then look angry if they notice you slamming on the brakes to save their lives.

I think young people think life is a video game and they can just hit reset.

 

Maybe their too busy wondering when that next text message will come thru?

Now-a-days I assume some idiot will walk out in front of me while rolling thru the grocery store lot. Walmart seems even worse for idiots, I mean pedestrians, walking out in front of cars

Mike

 

The problem to me is, that is does not sound like a car - at all.

 

there's no way mine is that loud. on the other hand in the middle of the video they do comment that it's not very loud from the driver's perspective. maybe it is strongly directional. but when i am backing out of my garage with the drivers' side window open, i can barely hear it.

the leaf makes a similar noise. i think they are sweeping a sine wave thru the higher range of audible frequenies. this makes it more directional as perceived by humans and also they are probably trying to hit a range of frequencies that even "old" ears can hear.

so this kind of sound has probably been determined to be the "right" type of sound for this application...

 

I saw a clip of the BMW answer to all of this. They play the recording of a engine through a speaker outside of the car, as you accelerate, the motor pitch raises with your speed.
At this point just put the damn gas engine back in!