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Comment by kleiba | Hacker News Reader

I live close to a pretty crowded street. Lots of trucks, cars, motorcycles. Besides the environmental benefit, one thing I've been looking forward to for years is the reduced noise that electric engines would bring about. Reading a sentence like:

Nissan's new electric vehicle has a speaker fitted under its bonnet and a synthesiser in the dash to generate engine noise.

makes me so aggressive, I cannot even tell you. I think when you've never experienced any other kind of car than a loud one, then yes, you will start relying on your ears when you cross the street. But I think that's just a matter of what you're used to. If cars always had electric engines from the beginning, do you think people would get run over all the time today? I don't think so, because they would have adapted.

I think the transition from combustion to electric engines will be slow enough for people to adapt to them. And gosh, it would be such a niecer world with less car noise...

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I'm hard of hearing, and car noise significantly decreases my quality of life. Almost anywhere you go in the city, there's too much traffic noise for us to talk. Meet at a coffeeshop or something and there's too much noise inside to talk. So I too was really looking forward to electric cars, and dismayed by this. The worst was hearing about a push to make quiet cars illegal -- yes, that might be the best practical safety measure in the current state of the art, I don't know, but must we stop all innovation? Is there no other imaginable way to address the problem?

(I don't know how much quieter a street full of electric cars would actually be. Would like to find out.)

Car traffic in general significantly decreases my quality of life - and probably my life expectancy, too.

The EV1 SUV was pretty much silent. Leaving a parking spot, it sounded like a bicycle. Without the ratchet. At freeway speeds, car noise is dominated by tire noise, so presumably the EV1 was equivalently loud there.

As a person who signed up to buy the Nissan leaf early, and a current owner, I was also pretty upset about this, at least until I got the car.

The noise that is makes is barely audible from within the car. It is a very faint whistling / turbine sort of noise, and I have to turn it on and off to get my passengers to hear it, even with the windows open.

Additionally, there is a switch to turn it off if one hates it. However, after driving this car daily for a few months, I wish it were louder. I can't tell you how many times I've gotten stuck behind a pedestrian or biker who is proceeding directly down the middle of a street or parking lot, and has no idea I am behind them. I creep along at 5 miles an hour, and I can either honk at them (very rude), or just wait for them to notice me. They usually figure it out after 30 seconds or so, and many times they jump and do a double take when they realize I "snuck up" behind them. A little more artificial noise would eliminate this problem.

>I can either honk at them (very rude)

// A car horn is there to allow you to warn other road users of your presence. Sounding the horn to make someone aware you are there makes things safer, they avoid being run over. If they scowl at you then smile broadly and wave.

Recently I've noticed where I am people have stopped saying "excuse me" (the pedestrian equivalent or beeping your horn) they just stand waiting. I find it annoying as that can mean you're delaying someone without knowing it.

I feel pretty lucky that automobile owners in the early 20th century weren't required to stop every quarter mile and shovel a load of horse manure onto the street. Honestly, that's how I feel about requiring a car to be more noisy. The only reason people rely on cars being noisy is that they always have been noisy. It's not like engine noise is the only thing separating life and death. Consider parking lots, which are exactly the kind of close-quarters, limited visibility place where engine noise would be vital, if it were really vital. When a parking lot is too busy to pinpoint the engine noise of a nearby car -- when there are cars all around, shopping carts jangling over rough pavement, people talking, PA systems blaring announcements, noise reflecting off all the metal surfaces -- does that make it a deadly environment? No. People are careful, and accidents are rare. Relying on sound is not a necessity; it's just a habit that has become a mistake.

The danger is based entirely on people needing to adjust their assumptions about cars, which has basically already happened for people in the United States, where hybrids are now commonplace. The longer we can hold off this insanity the more obvious it will be that it is insanity. Who in 2015 will assume that cars are noisy, if we don't commit the folly of making them noisy? In 2020? Or we could choose to make cars noisy now and be stuck with the noise pollution forever.

What about blind people? They rely pretty heavily on hearing the car.

Or what about people walking down the street and a car creeping up on them from behind. It's scary having things rush past from behind if there is no warning. Let alone very dangerous.

As much as you might think humans are awesome and only need eyes, fact is that as most other animals, when it comes to danger, we mostly rely on our ears.

That's why phones ring. That's why fire alarms ring. That's why alarm clocks ring. Everything that needs our immediate and utmost attention ... is loud.

Modern luxury class cars are already surprisingly silent, in particular when driving less than 50 km/h. That's exactly the speed in situations pedestrians or blind might be endangered. Doesn't seem to be too much of a problem yet.

Yes. If you've ever watched cars drive by on a snow-covered road you know that most of the noise comes from the tires and the pavement. I'd be surprised, and I'm sure automakers would push back, if their new electric cars had to be louder than already shipping cars.

Electric cars still make noise: the wind, the tires, and for trucks the cargo can too sometimes. It's just that they would make considerably less noise.

Blind people usually don't simply jaywalk a crowded street, they cross at the lights. And you'd still be able to hear moving cars.

I don't think phones ring because we rely on our ears in times of danger. It's because hearing is one of the senses that doesn't require exclusive focus (you would not want to stare at your phone all day until it starts blinking, although in some offices they do). Smell and taste wouldn't be alternatives for obvious reasons, but feel could be, and in fact phones can vibrate. Some wrist alarm clocks do too. And fire alarms are nothing we're exposed to every hour of the day.

I acknowledge that the fact that cars are pretty loud could be helpful in reducing accidents. But apparently your theory has a flaw, or else no one would ever get hit by a car. Now, one could say that more people would get hit by cars if all cars were super-silent, but my original point was that this is just because we're not (yet) used to more silent cars. I think pedestrians would change their behavior and get used to them.

For people living on highly frequented roads, continous noise can become a very stressful factor. It drastically reduces quality of life and can negatively affect your psychological and physical health. That doesn't mean that every person living on a busy street gets sick. But I would still argue in favor of reducing noise where possible, and more silent engines could be one factor.

In context, this is referring to sound:

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said in a research report last year that hybrid vehicles are twice as likely to be involved in pedestrian crashes at low speeds compared with conventional vehicles. The study looked at circumstances in which vehicles were slowing down or stopping, backing up or entering or departing a parking space.

And for sheer quantities:

Nearly 4,100 pedestrians were killed and 59,000 were injured in 2009, according to the most recent data available.

And for how the blind themselves feel, rather than our guesses:

Blind pedestrians have pushed for the changes, saying the quiet purr of hybrids can pose risks for them because they use sound cues to travel safely.

http://www.mnn.com/green-tech/transportation/stories/hybrid-...

"I don't think phones ring because we rely on our ears in times of danger. It's because hearing is one of the senses that doesn't require exclusive focus (you would not want to stare at your phone all day until it starts blinking, although in some offices they do)."

One could say the same about cars. Silent cars would require much more focus and no amount of adapting will change that.

I disagree. Take for instance a city like Amsterdam (or any other Dutch city for that matter). People ride bikes there. Lots of bikes. Fast bikes. When you go there for the first time, you better make sure you walk on the right side of the side walk, or else you're actually in danger of getting run over - you're just not used to them, and the bike lanes often are on the side walks.

But you do get used to that - you simply start looking out more carefully.

I see no reason why it should be different with cars, especially since you would probably hear even a silent car more easily than a bike.

Everything that needs our immediate and utmost attention ... is loud.

All cars within earshot need my immediate and utmost attention?! Nonsense.

When I lived in London, I cycled everywhere; the number of pedestrians who would blindly walk out in front of me was astounding. From my experience - and my bike certainly wasn't silent - electric cars without engine noises would be lethal.

Lethal to people who don't look where they are walking. Natural selection thinning the herd, I think it's a fair trade for reduced noise pollution. I'd be surprised if iPods haven't already begun the process.

As much as I hate traffic noise, I don't want to have people driving around in completely silent cars. Electric scooters are very popular in New Delhi (see http://www.heroelectric.in/; I even own one of those), and they barely make a sound. More than once I've been startled by a scooter approaching from behind. Moreover, it's impossible to account for them when I'm on a bicycle.

The eyes have a field of vision. The ears hear 360 degrees. This seems like an inherent advantage of the ears.

Wouldn't it be pretty easy to find the source of noise?

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