Electric cars: New vehicles to emit noise to aid safety
bbc.co.uk
bbc.co.uk
I live in the Netherlands and there are electric cars here that already make these sounds. Its like a really faint 'vmmm' found. Its great because when I'm cycling I can hear a car coming up behind me, but its still way softer then regular car sounds so its still a decrease in night noise pollution vs regular cars (the 'vmmm' is really soft and doesn't carry far).
I also noticed it already when walking around parking lots, if there wasn't a 'vmmm' i would never realize that there are cars driving around. Sound really is one of the most important senses for situational awareness.
(I live in the City where cars crawl around slowly so the sounds are active)
I believe under the EU rules, sound is only emitted up to 20km/h (12 mph).
Doesn't that make it pretty pointless then? Collisions below that speed are almost never fatal even for pedestrians.
I feel like it may actually be better for inattentive drivers to hit something at those kinds of speeds and jar them into being more careful in the future (and have their insurance rightfully dinged) than to have their first experience of their not paying attention causing them to hit something occur at a higher speed.
But it does happen at even moderately higher speeds. Isn't that the argument used to justify all of those traffic calming measures? Make people feel less safe so they act more safe? Doing this is exactly the opposite of that, so either one of them is wrong or the other is.
Friend has a Zoe and it makes perfect sense. When driving slow, like in a parking lot its amazing how futuristic it seems when he disables the "noise" - it's totally silent, very dangerous. So I think this is a good directive.
People will have to adapt to silent cars. But that's scary.
Everybody knows that you have to look before making a turn or changing lanes. We also know that by and large people who listen to music or have a headset for a phone conversation are not killed en masse.
I think that is law is a pity. There is enough noise pollution already.
Comparing even a fairly low number of deaths and serious injuries vs a minor noise from moving cars and it’s an obvious choice IMO.
Basically everybody has to pay the price of having more noise pollution to save a few people not paying attention at what they are doing.
The reason we get these kinds rules is because there is a regulatory framework for cars. which makes it easy to add additional requirements.
For example, in the Netherlands both electric mopeds and high speed electric bikes get more popular. Certainly the bikes are at high speed essentially silent (small bike tires have less friction and make less noise).
Because there is no framework to require bikes to make noise they don't have to. And needless to say, a collision with a bike going 45 km/h will do a lot of damage.
If people bumping into silent things was a wide spread problem, then yes it would make sense to require every thing to make noise.
But these types of accidents are just that, accidents. They will always happen. Taking random measures to reduce accidents with an unknown amount will just make society as a whole worse.
It’s not random, actual studies gave demonstrated the risk for years. https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/... “The HEV was two times more likely to be involved in a pedestrian crash in these situations than was an ICE vehicle.”
And no it’s not just about people not paying attention, the blind don’t get the option on this one.
Note that the report says 'Incidence rates provided in this report should be interpreted with caution due to the small sample size.'
If this was solid engineering, there would minimum noise requirements to help people with reduced vision.
This is similar to having a man with a flag walk in front of car. Because those horseless vehicles are just scary.
Here is a more recent example with far more data. https://www.iihs.org/media/0465243f-89d5-4fa7-95c1-367f1e2c1...
Overall it’s on the order of hundreds more deaths in the US alone assuming every car becomes a hybrid or electric vehicle without these systems.
The average reaction time for humans is 0.25 seconds to a visual stimulus, 0.17 for an audio stimulus. You’re crossing at a crosswalk past stopped cars and someone takes their foot off the break, you will dodge faster with engine noises. And, it’s not just about crossing the street, knowing a car is on changes how people walk past seemingly parked cars.
Worse, saying you will just get this right every single time you do it, however you only need to make a mistake once to die.
A claimed 0.08 seconds improved reaction time (were you implying that was a lot? because a slow-moving car doesn't go far in 0.08s) is not enough reason in my opinion to have what are bound to be deafening beepers everywhere. So noise! much safety! You are proposing a ridiculous noisy dystopia. Imagine a carpark full of cars loudly beeping at all times!
Cars should have sensors like parking sensors for when they're moving slowly, or flashing lights, or literally any other solution than more meaningless noise in our already much too noisy environment.
You are overstating the danger with your, "you only need to make a mistake once to die" alarmism.
But I wonder if there’s one thing missing here. Hybrids have a lot higher low-end torque. I think the definitive study would be on a hybrid car with and without the noise, and I’m not sure if they ever tried to do that for the Leaf?
A minor noise from moving cars? How about this horrifying little marketing piece from Nissan [1] about their new “Canto” noise they are going to emit?
Besides, these noise levels are calibrated to be loud enough in a bustling city at high noon. They are not dynamic based on time of day, or location, or actual ambient sound levels. So, in other words, they will be loud and obnoxious, particularly outside of the city, where ambient is almost 20dB lower.
Diesel engines, endemic in Europe even in small cars, are particularly noisy.
'Cyclist behind some pedestrians, other slow cyclists'
'Cyclist either rings bell or says 'excuse me''
In a car situation, the car would have to honk its horn which is much more interrupting to people trying to sleep then small 'vmmm' which is only hearable in a small radius around the car.
Peds and cyclists often share spaces, and cyclists and cars also often share spaces. The issue is how can a faster silent vehicle safely and socially share a space with slower more vulnerable vehicles.
We have daily accidents with peds walking into a bike path unpredictably and causing conflict. (Not necessarily a crash but annoyance by cyclist having to do evasive maneuver). However if an crash happens its not usually do bad, while even a low speed collision with a car will damage your bike and the car and cost $$$.
So I wouldn't look at the bike as an example of a silent vehicle working well in a city environment. We have many accidents they are just also very minor accidents.
For the people who will point out that this could also be solved with better infrastructure, I agree. Most of the accidents happen at places where e.g. peds get a green light to cross the road and then continue to cross the cycle path on the other side because in their mind they are protected by the green light, but actually now cyclists have right of way. Sometimes we put zebra crossings across bike paths but then everyone is confused because the cyclists don't stop anyway and it just causes more conflict because still the rules are being broken but just by the other party now.
tl;dr rules are confusing and people don't follow them anyway. A city environment is super dynamic, and often infrastructure cannot be changed. Adding 'vmmm's makes those interactions much easier, and its really doesn't cause the noise pollution people keep talking about.
I also wonder whether cars ought to have something less loud than the horn, for communicating with people who aren't encased in metal. Like trams (many places) have a little bell.
When I’m in NYC, I always wish there was a counter for horn-presses that eventually triggers an automatic fine if you use your horn too much.
I'm curious how much of the honking in NYC is, say, "on your left" vs "up yours" compared to other cities/countries.
In a car situation, the car would have to honk its horn which is much more interrupting to people trying to sleep then small 'vmmm' which is only hearable in a small radius around the car.
Give the electric car a little bell? (Former electric car driver here.)
I drive a hybrid and at least once I simply opened the window and said "excuse me" - people were surprised, but also happy to not hear the horn.
Sell some warm sounding effects as vehicle add-ons like a delay or reverb unit.
People pulling out of side streets have to either merge into the first lane of traffic, or cross that lane and merge into the second (generally). If you have cyclists coming against the flow of traffic at sometimes 20mph, that driver now has to cross 2 lanes of traffic, and always at least one.
Car drivers rarely give cyclists space (in the US) as it is when traveling the same direction. How unnerving would that experience be when what was a 10/15/20 mph difference in passing speed effectively doubles (and then some)?
No, we don't have this chance unless you implement a 20 mph speed limit everywhere. Above that speed it matters less and less that you have an electric engine because the tires and aerodynamic noise will be the main sources of sound.
That's why this regulation only requires the artifical sound up to 12 mph, above that speed they car is loud enough anyway.
[1]: http://www.leiserstrassenverkehr.bayern.de/entstehung/index....
Another thing that would help a lot is if we can keep asphalt smooth. Driving an EV on fresh asphalt is incredibly satisfying, as it seems to eliminate most of the tyre noise. Maybe we could have automate vehicles laying down a thin layer of that rubbery material (bitumen?) regularly?
Id also claim that winds and tyre noise is less annoying than engine noise. It’s more like a water fall, and don’t penetrate walls as much as, say, a deep rumbling truck engine.
From reading that Annex, Renault Zoe should be compliant (sound engine below 30km/h, can be disabled, sound adapts to speed) and while it's clearly audible on the sidewalk, it's significantly more muted than an ICE car: I don't think it's audible through a closed window, and probably not even through an open window that's somewhat raised.
Plus, such a system doesn't _allow_ for the more pronounced noises ICEs can make in urban traffic (eg. cranking up the engine speed to show off).
> Traffic noise harms health in numerous ways. Protracted noise-related stress can exhaust human physical reserves, disrupt the regulatory capacity of organ functions and hence limit their effectiveness. Traffic noise is a potential risk factor for the development of medical conditions and incidents such as high blood pressure and heart attacks.
But you are looking at an old draft. The updated Annex VIII references another document which does indeed specify a minimum noise level.
https://ec.europa.eu/transparency/regdoc/rep/3/2017/EN/C-201...
Because this requires more digging: the detailed specs come from UNECE Regulation 138 which can be found at https://www.unece.org/fileadmin/DAM/trans/main/wp29/wp29regs... (which also seems to be the current edition at this time, according to the special interest database at https://globalautoregs.com/rules/205-quiet-road-transport-ve...).
The relevant parts are 6.2.1.2 and the table in 6.2.8, and they lay out a minimum sound level of 56dB(A) at 2m distance to the car (PP' line, as defined in the appendix to Annex 3) at 20km/h, that must be spread out over two of the bands in the table (at least one <= 1600Hz)
In other tables on the net, I get 50dB as the "minimum street noise", 70dB for a car at 10m distance and 45-60dB for a quiet-to-normal conversation at 1m distance. 56dB at 2m still seems relatively muted in that context.
But most importantly, perceived volume is highly relative. In a noisy urban environment that god-awful drivetone might not horrible, but it still has to be noticeable. After all, the busy urban environment is exactly where it's theoretically supposed to be helping people notice the car! But how about when someone is driving through their suburban condo complex coming home after a late night of work?
I think the only time I've used the horn was when, stopped at a red light, the car ahead started to roll backwards towards me.
What do people do in this situation, in Vienna or some other place where using the horn is banned?
Assuming the horn actually still works, use it. In such a situation, the risk of being hit far outweighs that of being prosecuted.
Well, in cities horses and horse driven carriages on pebbles/stone pavements weren't that much silent even before that.
Admittedly there were much less vehicles overall, but the sound of the horseshoes is very loud, to which you add the wooden (but usually with a steel ring) wheels, possibly the drivers shouting at their horses and what not and I don't think that a street in - say - central New York in 1899 was particularly silent.
Compare with (scroll down to find "THE HORSELESS CARRIAGE AND PUBLIC HEALTH":
https://archive.org/stream/scientific-american-1899-02-18/sc...
>The noise and clatter which makes conversation al-
most impossible on many streets of New York at the
present time will be done away with, for horseless vehi-
cles of all kinds are always noiseless or nearly so. This
question of noise has much to do with the general
health of the community. Specialists have many times
expressed an opinion that the nervous diseases which
exist in the city are aggravated, if not caused, in many
cases, by noises incident to a great city's traffic. The
bells of the new vehicles will of course be somewhat
annoying at first.
Also, there is a button to disable that noise if you want to (at least in the Ioniq)
Advanced pedestrian avoidance systems would prevent more injuries than this joke. This regulation shows such a complete lack of vision or respect. So glad I got my EV before this became mandatory.
But some car manufacturers are idiots (no other word) and add sounds INSIDE the vehicle.
The Nissan Leaf has tons of gratuitous sounds that cheapen the car.
When you turn the car on and off, they have startup and shutdown sounds like a cheap canon camera.
And they have a "futuristic" driving motor sound, which is probably damaging some of your hearing frequencies on long drives.
Outside sound for pedestrians on the Leaf is not annoying and a good safety feature IMO.
If only there was a way to pipe and amplify their tyre noise into the cabin too instead of having it insulated away.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/blind-man-hit-twice-sa...
I'd like to have an optional sound. Using the horn is an act of aggression, but enabling a Jetsons-like sound when I want to alert pedestrians would be very useful.
You should be able to disable it. For example, when coming home and parking late at night (headlights are visible then and it is quiet so a sound causes pollution).
I don't consider that cars should move faster than pedestrians in a city centre, so I won't change my behaviour if I'm already walking. However, it's useful to ask people standing to move to the side.
So it is very important to have a universal class of sounds, and it must be forbidden to play sounds of that class on a street for other things.
I have considered this as well. That is, setting aside the issue of electric noise vs. ICE noise, I think all cars should have two horn noises - the normal "horn" and a universally defined two-beep "friendly" horn.
That "friendly" horn would be very useful in many driving situations and would make many interactions less confusing / antagonistic.
Maybe projecting a laser in the road ahead or something like that.
Our brain and ears are evolved to interpret sounds so laser workarounds won't be as effective.
If you see a laser on the road then you don't get any instant information, what if there are more then 1 car and project light.
Anyway I meant that sound in general, we can instantly know where the sound comes from and we do not need to actively think about it.
Unless I'm in a place where people generally understand the concept (shared use recreational bike paths), I don't give an audible warning unless the person is walking erratically, waving their arms as the talk, etc.
Broadly speaking, if I want people to keep doing what they're doing so I can pass safely, my experience is that it's better to just pass silently. If I want somebody to alter their behavior so I can pass safely, I'll alert them.
As somebody who cycles a lot (>4000km/year) in a major European city I encounter such situations nearly every day, but guess what: Such situations are totally fine for me. Pedestrians are the weakest traffic participants so it's my job as a cyclist to take care I don't hurt them. That applies even more to car drivers and adding artificial sound to cars doesn't exempt them from this responsibility.
So I've sat at many a traffic light considering the viability of making an app for mobile that is essentially a motion triggered synthesiser, getting louder/changing pitches/stepping through a song sequence as the e-moped rider picks up speed. It has been a thought game I've played, at least a few times, and mostly after some near misses.
However lately this whole concept was defeated when I realised, basically, all I needed is a little bell to hang on the handle-bars ...
I’m not sure whether the current Prius sound is compliant with the new EU rules, however. Many EVs in Europe, such as the Leaf and Zoe, are already compliant.
Where I live the electrics dominate and you can easily hear them unless they sneak up on you on purpose (i.e. drive 1 km/h on fresh asphalt towards your back). The electric motors emit a whine that is very distinct you also hear the tires.
A much bigger problem in this area is people walking around with headphones / earplugs getting injured.
[edit: I vaguely recall seeing a show that said the primary source of noise on the highway at least was due to tires on the road rather than engine noise]
It was intended more for the context of making highways quieter, for that you need something more complex - it’s things like the sound of the tread itself hitting the pavement etc
On a semi-unrelated note, the other day I was thinking that difficult road sections should be fitted with beacons that cars can talk to in order to get a more accurate understanding of the roads during difficult weather situations, such as snow.
Maybe such beacons could emit light/sound as well, when they're actively talking to a car, rather than the car itself having to emit noise. Though I understand that this puts the responsibility back in the hands of politicians/road authorities, which of course they don't want.
Though to be fair, I get the reason for this decision. I was just looking forward to quieter cities.
The noise is supposed to tell other road users where the car is, how would this help, except to tell road users that there is a car on a junction.
PING
VEHICLE IN TRANSIT
PING
VEHICLE IN TRANSIT
PING
VEHICLE IN TRANSIT
(inaudible subsonic vibration to alert hearing impaired and headphone-wearers)
WOOPWOOPWOOPWOOPWOOP
...
PING
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXodSqMpuUQ
..but in this advert the noises sound so naff and quite... noisy!
My vehicle of choice is a bicycle and it is very quiet. But I have a bell. I can give a gentle ting to let people know I am behind them. It would be a little odd to me to have a bell that continually rattled just to inform anyone who I can't see that I am behind them.
How many guide dogs have I maimed and slaughtered? Zero. And this is sharing the same paths that people go on specifically to walk their dogs.
What next, someone walking sixty yards out in front with a red flag?
What happens if you live near a road that has slow moving traffic during rush hour? This could be nice and silent as it shuffles along. But it will be making these nanny noises from all the tin boxes.
Apart from anything else I thought it was a solved problem of having cars stop if something is in the way? Automatic collision avoidance?
Can't we have that and a softer 'bell' instead of the aggressive 'horn'?
For example a crowded downtown road in rush hour. People will obviously know there are cars in the street. Why add to urban noise pollution.
Or even if there are cars in front of you and behind you, you probably don’t need sounds.
I wonder if this is a transitional feature that can be phased out as EVs become more prevalent.
Reverse into the driveway when you park in the evening so you don’t have to reverse out in the morning?
Bycicles have bells. On shared paths, pedestrians don't hear cyclists coming from behind, so you occasionally give them a ping.
Note that I'm not advocating for adding noise to these things. I'm just trying to point out that there's a status-quo bias where we're willing to retain unnecessary noise but not to create it.
You only sound a horn if the driver thinks it is needed, whereas pedestrians & other vulnerable road users are making all sorts of judgements using audio clues that the drivers are completely unaware of.
Most modern engines in cars going under 12mph are pretty quiet in terms of overall noise pollution.
I guess it's handy in car parks etc to be able to hear cars.
I think this is a point worth noting - for people with visual impairments, this could be a potentially life-threatening situation they have to deal with on a day-to-day basis.
Maybe once all the cars are self driving we can get rid of the sound.
Turns out the actual numbers are not obvious:
https://insideevs.com/news/330043/quiet-car-rule-new-evs-mus...
You could invert the formula and instead of walking ride a harley (loud pipes save lives, man) :)
And perhaps shut off the noise on highways (where there are no pedestrians/cyclists anyway).
Futuristic electric car: BWAAAAHHHHHHHH
This is different from what is being required by the new EU (and US) rules, which require external speakers to emit pedestrian warning noise.
* The "noise" will be a sound designed by sound specialists.
* The designers will be smart enough to design sounds that increase safety without being needlessly loud.
* Since the low frequencies of an ICE are not directional, a sound at higher frequencies (which is directional) is going to be an improvement. [edit: ICE frequencies are not as low as thought, so this point isn't too strong.]
* The motor sound of an ICE is only the dominant noise component at low speeds. Most of the time, the noise of the wheel on the asphalt dominates. At high speeds, the aerodynamic noise becomes dominant.
As a pedestrian and cyclist I'm quite happy to be able hear the 2 tons of battery that are coming up from behind. And the one person I know who drives a Tesla will also be happy about this. He had a close call with a cyclist once because the cyclist didn't hear him.
Imagine the noise is optional. As a driver you can turn it off. However, when the noise is switched off giant spikes pop out from the car's body that are guaranteed to kill anyone who gets in the way.
Do you think it would ever be acceptable for someone to drive with the noise switched off?
We’re talking about city centre slow (<12mph) driving, I’m really not sure what road improvements could improve safety of silent cars?
I wonder how they will solve the noise problem if it’s just slow moving traffic.
Kidding. I was thinking like adding more guidance for pedestrians and prevent them jumping on the road with pre-cautions but guess I missed the point since the news says when they are under 12 mph and reversing.
Here's an example.
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.900949,-2.0723105,3a,75y,3...
You'll see of these four roads meeting at a crossroad only one of them has a crossing. Pedestrians have absolute right of way on zebra crossings. The car driver is committing an offence if the fail to stop for a pedestrian on a zebra crossing. Many drivers don't know this and they don't stop or slow down, which is why the sounds are needed - to stop visually impaired people stepping in front of a car that has no chance of stopping in time.
Notice that two of the other roads have dropped curbs and textured paving. Rule 172 of the Highway Code mean that pedestrians also have priority on those roads, but this isn't well known. Someone stepping off the curb there in front of a moving vehicle is at risk of harm, even though they have priority.
What should a person standing on the near right corner wishing to cross to the far right corner do? Just use that crossing that's there? Or cross to the near left, then use zebra crossing, then cross to far right corner?