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Monday, January 07, 2013

U.S. proposes minimum sounds for 'quiet' cars


The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is proposing new rules to require minimum sound levels from electric vehicles, hybrids and other quiet cars to warn pedestrians.
NHTSA's proposal — required by Congress in 2010 — sets minimum sound levels for hybrid and electric vehicles to help make all pedestrians, especially visually impaired people, aware of approaching vehicles.
Electric and hybrid vehicles do not rely on traditional engines and at low speeds can be very difficult to hear.
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They have to do this because motherfuckers nowadays are too damned stupid to look both ways before crossing the street - either that or they've got their heads up their asses and checking their texts and reading their email while walking down the street.
Brings to mind that woman that sued some city because her daughter fell into a manhole while walking down the sidewalk and texting at the same time.



 

10 comments:

  1. When I was a kid we would put palying cards in our spokes

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  2. "Loud Pipes Save Lives!!!!!!"

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  3. I guess that looking both ways and taking adult responsibility for crossing the road is too difficult for today's enstupidated population.

    Fuck 'em.

    Just let evolution occur naturally.

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  4. I like the playing card idea, and maybe a little required vroom, vroom, errrttt.

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  5. F'tards told me an advantage of electric cars was less noise pollution..

    - Rumson

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  6. I recall reading an article a few years ago where the writer was reviewing a Prius and was going to pick up his blind friend for lunch. His blind friend was on the curb when he drove up using the electric motor only. The blind person was unaware of the car until the door was opened.

    If there has to be some noise generated, I suggest The Ride of The Valkyrie' as used in Apocalypse Now with Robert Duvall. I love the smell of napalm in the morning.

    Al_in_Ottawa

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  7. Adding some noise won't save the fools walking around with earphones, or the ones busy talking to some other fool on their cellphone (with or without those stupid looking Bluetooth earpieces).

    Another answer in search of a problem.

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  8. Maybe someone can make some little whistles to glue on the front of a Prius like the ones that attract deer towards the front of my car.

    Instead of whistling though they could sound like a text message alert, that will get the peabrains to perk up and look around.

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  9. Hmmmm, and to think of all the tickets I got as a kid with my thrush mufflers being too damn loud............

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  10. It's not so much that they're too stupid to look both ways, although many of them are, or that they have their heads up their asses, though many of them do. The major problem I see in pedestrians is that while most states' law on the subject reads something like this, "When a pedestrian is in a crosswalk approaching traffic must stop and allow them to cross", far too many take it to mean, "Pedestrians have the right-of-way at all times regardless of any and all other factors."

    The attitude extends to people who ride their bicycles on the sidewalk, too. I've damn near hit several people on bikes, and on foot for that matter, since moving to NE Florida over a year ago (in this area lots of kids and retirees walk and/or ride), and every one of them was because they insisted on going into the crosswalk, either eyefucking me directly or making a point of seeming to ignore me and other traffic all the while, just as I was turning into the street.

    I have two teenagers who like to gad about the town and I've told them, "Whether you're walking or riding, yield the right-of-way to *all* motor vehicles because you're going to lose any physical confrontation you have with one." I cannot fathom why people don't get that.

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