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Comment by masklinn | Hacker News Reader

They contribute to being heard by walkers and cyclist relying on their ears to know whether a car is coming, which is the legal point of adding these things (and why they can be disabled at high speed)

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As someone who lives in a place where cycling traffic (i.e., completely silent traffic) is massive (Amsterdam), I would suggest this is just a matter of careless habit in a car dominated society.

The only people not looking, relying in their ears and therefor constantly causing dangerous traffic situations over here are tourists. Those are the only ones blindly stepping into traffic because they don't hear the bicycles coming and therefor assume there is no traffic.

The need to have traffic go "vroom, vroom" in order to avoid accidents is just pathetic, and utterly unsustainable in a future where all traffic is likely to be silent by nature.

Imagine living a place that would be as nice an quiet as a village on a sunday if it wasn't for all those vehicles creating artificially amplified noise pollution. Ridiculous.

I agree. It's just a matter of getting used to checking for cars visually. You already have to do that with bikes when crossing bike lanes.

During a transition period I can see it being a problem since listening for cars it can be a strong habit. I had problems with cross walks in the US at first since many of them don't emit a sound when it's green. I would often stand around subconsciously waiting for the sound to indicate that I can cross, and I'd miss my turn.

I am a former Los Angeles bike commuter, and a current walking-commuter (can't think of an elegant word for that). I very much appreciate knowing when a car is coming, but the constant roar on the every street means that conversations have to stop when a truck drives by, you can't hear people talking even when they're only 6 or 7 feet from you, and any sound quieter than an internal combustion engine is diminished. It has left our city streets' as sad, desolate landscapes in many places. If we want to add noise to cars, let them have a bell, like bicycles.

I could walk around screaming at the top of my lungs to warn people when I'm walking by, but maybe I should just try not to hit them instead (and face prison time if I kill someone by doing so.)

>but maybe I should just try not to hit them instead

There's one situation where drivers don't face penalties if they hit and injure/kill a pedestrian: if that pedestrian caused the accident and the driver had no way of preventing it.

For example, if a pedestrian assumes there is no traffic and steps into the road without looking, just feet from an oncoming-but-silent car.

Source please. I don't believe this is the case.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/30/opinion/why-drivers-get-aw...

Pedestrians can be at fault for an accident with a car.

"Here are a few common scenarios under which a pedestrian may be found at least partially at fault for an accident involving a vehicle:

* jaywalking, or crossing in the middle of the street, outside of a crosswalk

* crossing against the traffic signal (i.e. in the crosswalk but against a red "Do Not Walk" command)

* entering a street or highway while intoxicated, and

* walking along highways, bridges, or causeways where pedestrian access is prohibited."

http://www.alllaw.com/articles/nolo/auto-accident/pedestrian...

You don't believe what? You don't believe that pedestrians can step into traffic? Or you don't believe that drivers can get away with no punishment if pedestrians step in front of them without giving them time to stop? I'm not looking up a source because it's so ridiculous that I'm not even sure there's a law on the books about it, but if you walk into the side of my (moving) car and get hurt, that's your fault, not mine.

You know those tire commercials where a kid goes running out into traffic between cars in a residential neighborhood and the driver is happy they had Michelin tires because they were able to stop in time? Imagine the kid ran out half a second later. Should the driver be charged?

Again, I'm not sure what's unbelievable about anything I said.

We disagree on a more basic level.

I know people can run in to the street without warning. I know drivers get away with no punishment if somebody darts in to the street.

In fact, my point was that drivers get away with no punishment _almost every time they kill a pedestrian_. In NYC they have less than a 5% chance of even being arrested, much less convicted. Driving a car is probably a great way to commit murder.

Also, yes, I think the driver should be charged for driving so fast in a residential neighborhood that they can't stop in time to prevent killing a kid. If I recklessly [flew my helicopter/drove my tank/rammed my hovercraft/ran my bobsled] in to a child it would be met with outrage, so why do we apply different rules to automobiles? (Spoiler - because automobiles are convenient and while we claim otherwise, we just don't care enough about dead kids to change culture).

http://freakonomics.com/2014/05/01/the-perfect-crime-a-new-f...

I think you're disagreeing with something I never said. From what I understand, you're asking me for a source stating that drivers can hit someone and not be at fault, while your argument is that drivers are never at fault? I guess I still don't get what kind of source you're asking me for.

But apparently you believe there is such a thing as a speed so low that you cannot hit a pedestrian. Have you ever watched some Russian dashboard camera footage where pedestrians throw themselves at cars that are sometimes completely stopped? Or my previous example of someone walking into the side of your car? I've had that happen, where a bicyclist ran through an intersection without looking and ended up in the back of my pickup truck. Tell me that's my fault. The responding officer sure didn't.

This is apparently a downvote magnet but to clarify, you wrote:

    "There's one situation where drivers don't face penalties if they hit and injure/kill a pedestrian: if that pedestrian caused the accident and the driver had no way of preventing it."

This is the statement with which I disagree. There are many situations where drivers don't face penalties if they hit and injure/kill a pedestrian, not just one. Anyway, my views on this are clear and I am obviously in the minority. Regardless, I still think that if one operates a heavy, dangerous vehicle near people who may be killed by it the onus of responsibility for not killing people falls on the driver.

If a person leaps in front of a big rig in order to kill themselves, then no, the driver is not responsible. If a kid runs after a soccer ball in the street and gets run over because they driver didn't stop in time, then the driver was probably going too fast for the circumstances.

Mind you, I like cars. I may walk to work but I drive very quickly on the autobahn a few times a year and it's a blast. Limited access roadways with _incredibly_ good visibility and road conditions are great places to go fast. Cities and towns with cars, bikes, walkers, and anything else you can imagine all using the same street space are great places to go slow.

I think that's a misunderstanding, or a misinterpretation of what I meant. I didn't say "there is only one situation", I said "there is one situation".This could be interpreted as "only one" or as "one of many". I meant it in the context of "one of many". There's an implied "there's (at least) one situation", but without that explicitly stated, you're right that there could be an implied "there's (only) one situation".

So allow me to clarify my original post: There's at least one situation where drivers don't face penalties.

And then let me word it a little more strongly: There's only one situation where drivers, under the law, don't face penalties: when the driver was not at fault. Because the situations you listed are those where the driver legally could have faced penalties but did not.

I think the counter-argument is "This is guaranteed to save a few lives over the years". It may not be great for every condition, particularly mid-town Manhattan or Los Angeles, but in other cities, having a car engine sound does alert people walking that something is coming.

Vehicular homicide is already a thing bro.

not to turn this into a debate about street safety, but it's rarely prosecuted unless there's another crime attached (being drunk/leaving the scene/etc) or some motive beyond "i wasn't paying attention".

I have traveled extensively in the city, both on legs and bike, and I commute on my bike daily. The noise polution is already at a point where you cannot tell if a small efficient cars is approaching. Hell, you can barely hear a Mercerdes AMG with a massive 6L engine. Unless the goal is to make people aware of a car in otherwise reasonably quite environments, it's pointless to require. That said, Teslas do not have to emit any fake noises in Denmark, and I can STILL hear the tire noise when it's driving past me.

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