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Comment by amatecha | Hacker News Reader

Right? I cannot stand the sound of these loud buzzing things speeding past nonstop. Very grating and honestly stressful to listen to constantly :(

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There are electric scooters (not push-bikes) in Prague, it's absolutely quiet. A better future awaits you!

I almost got run over by one of those quiet electric scooters. Using sound as a cue isn’t gonna be very useful and it’ll take a while to get used to these things

Seems to me that you are not looking both ways before crossing the street.

It's so easy to forget! If only a scooter nearly ran me down, I had Tesla drivers rightfully shouting at me more than one time

Sounds like the drivers aren't.

Your safety, especially avoiding being hit, effectively rests on mostly your own shoulders. That's why drivers learn defensive driving which teaches them they can get railed even when they have the right of way.

"I only look up from my phone when I hear an engine, so they should be stopping for me!" and the fact that the driver shares some of the blame isn't much of a consolation once you're laying in a hospital bed.

I also think it's a terrible justification for noise pollution.

That said, I'd be totally down for a city center that was just silent scooters, and where accidents got your scooter license revoked for 6mos no questions asked. ;)

Sounds to me like you never make a mistake. And of course i did look, thats why I didnt get run over! But we learn cues from patterns and the silent fast moving scooter is a new pattern. If this happened to you you’d understand instead of being snarky. And you probably dimly think I am against silent electric vehicles which I am not.

The other day this almost happened to me on a sidewalk in NYC. Delivery people on silent scooters do drive on sidewalks.

I'm an avid electric moped rider in Vienna, a moderately sized European city, and in my first few weeks of ridership, it was very clear that people just do not look if they don't first have an audio cue .. and indeed, I almost hit a number of people because they didn't hear me. Electric mopeds are smooth and near-silent - especially in the rush of a big city.

I've had days where all I can think of, is how to add sound to my moped in cool ways. #1 idea is to put a kind of buzzer/whistle on my helmet .. thought of the whole 'speed-based synthesiser app' that makes the "drrroooooot" sound (its a nonsense idea), but in the end, a plain old bell seems to be the most effective measure yet, in the effort to continue to enjoy the electric ride ..

I could imagine an industry standard 'speed synthesiser', though, but the jingle-bell is cute too, and cheaper ...

I think that is a good idea. It doesn't even need to be as loud as an engine and shouldn't be permanently on. Not sure what the sound could be without becoming a nuisance but im sure someone will come up with a good solution for this.

License movement noises from the Flinstones or Jetsons.

Not sure about other countries, but in Germany at least an AVAS (acoustic vehicle alerting system) must be installed in new electric cars and hybrids. My Zoe sounds like a spaceship while under 30 kph, the sound becoming quieter the faster you go, as from about 20 kph the sound of the tires would be louder than an engine anyway. Could be used for mopeds too.

I converted an old 1978 Puch Maxi moped that wasn't running to fully electric. Was a great way to learn how EVs work, and build a quiet around-town cruiser. https://photos.app.goo.gl/jgL4VmpmSWA5csba8

I love my electric moped, it is indeed quiet and smooth .. first few days of riding, I almost killed about 7 pedestrians, because people just do not look if they don't hear first, it seems, and I had to adjust my riding stance to be sure I was visible ..

#1 best way to get around any European city. I cannot fathom circumstances where I would go back to petrol-based transportation, also. From here on out its electric, or walk.

Same here. However, I am thinking about the "loud pipes save lifes" nonsense. Loud pipes should simply be banned, and thats it. The argument always seems to be the same, for kids as well as for grown up bikers: "But they're just kids, they just wanna play!"

Disagree. Banning things is rarely effective, can't be enforced and tends to make people install loud exhaust systems. I've seen far more confederate flags in California recently probably because of all the cancel culture efforts to ban them as an example. Also loud pipes actually do save biker lives, and I think as EV's start to break out of their niche market the manufacturers should have to build in some sort of pedestrian/cyclist/other motor vehicle awareness audio. Electric racing vehicles have to sound like wooping ice cream vans to compete so they don't kill marshals on track...link to VW hill climb EV(the perfect use of electric power - short run, altitude change acceleration) https://youtu.be/kAJaGAMWjHM

"loud pipe save lives" has always struck me as such an egotistical, anti-social argument. Do you know what would save much more biker lives than loud pipes do? Limiting speed for 2-wheeled vehicles to 30mph, by construction. Somehow, I've seen exactly zero bikers that advocate that.

That's because it's a idiotic idea. A huge problem for bikers is getting out of the way of barely there car, suv and truck drivers looking at phones and drinking hot beverages. Accelerating away from these dangerous idiots is a major problem for cyclists too, who don't have the acceleration abilities of a m/c to get out of the way.. I used to always worry about red BMW drivers as being the most aggressive and worse drivers but these days a red prius is always a major red flag warning based on my experiences with them. Maybe attention wandering sensors and alerts should be put in silent hybrids and ev's to get the driver to be more considerate of those around them

This is an impassioned argument that I hear frequently from those with loud engines. It’s not supported by data: http://www.maids-study.eu/pdf/MAIDS2.pdf. Because of the Doppler effect, the volume of your engine is not playing a significant role in detection by a driver in the vast majority of serious accidents due the fact that most of them are frontal.

On a personal level, the world you’re describing sounds like hell to me. There’s already way too much noise pollution. I ride motorcycles, I agree car drivers are inattentive to non-cars. Slowing down is the answer for noise and safety, save speed for track days.

Slowing down is the answer for noise and safety, save speed for track days < totally agree with that, and we also need more race tracks again. People who race and do track days often drive like old grannies because they understand the dangers (especially from head on traffic) far better than the average street driver. I think it inevitable that hybrids and EVs have some sort of noise projection at manufacture by law soon. Audio senses are 360 degree, vision isn't.

this is probably bad but I find driving extremely boring and I don’t hear or pay attention to any noise outside the car when I drive. I can remember only two drives in the last 10 years when I was not distracting myself with an audiobook or podcast. If an ambulance has their siren on I will notice it, thats it.

Look at the numbers: 857 bicycle deaths[1] vs 4985 bikers[2]. You can look at the unit sales to see how those translate to percentages - but I hope it's easy to agree that there are more cyclists, in fact.

Your theory that motorcycle max speed saves lives is simply unsupported by any data; if you can't see it, it's just cognitive dissonance - you've made up your mind that you like loud speedy bikes and are just looking for justifications.

(don't get me wrong - I fully understand that a slow motorcycle is no fun. But it _is_ a dangerous vehicle - own that, don't use loud noises and other means that inconvenience people around in order to feel slightly safer, that's just inconsiderate. )

[1] https://www.nhtsa.gov/road-safety/bicycle-safety

[2] https://www.nhtsa.gov/road-safety/motorcycle-safety

A slow motor cycle is called a moped

Exactly my point. If you're still doubtful about impact of max speed on fatality rate, check out the EU stats per 100k vehicles, bikes vs mopeds in different countries:

https://ec.europa.eu/transport/road_safety/specialist/knowle...

So I guess it's q.e.d that limiting max speed saves lives - but no biker will passionately advocate for this solution?

Your comment reminded me of the piss-take someone made of moped noise. Once the exhaust system has been modified it’s awful. https://youtu.be/0UotZ_ZLB5A

Your comment reminded me that whistle tips go woo [1]

[1] https://youtu.be/zUXow3d3-b0

That’s just for decoration.

anyone bothered by these early in the morning should already be up making breakfast

Not everyone works 9-5. Some people work odd hours so you can, for example, go to the hospital at 0200.

There’s another video kind of like this one that I saw once, but instead of an actually motorized bike they are riding on a conventional bicycle and playing a trumpet to make it sound like a motorcycle.

I can’t find the video now but I think it was filmed in Brazil and the guys on the bicycle we’re like teenagers or something.

Note that that's actually a trombone and not a trumpet, contrary to what the video title says.

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