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from the only-make-it-sound-like-a-spaceyship-if-it-flies-like-one dept.
Submitted via IRC for AndyTheAbsurd
Transport for London has been warned that proposals put forward for a safety feature to make electric buses more audible risk confusing vulnerable road users.
TfL has commissioned Aecom to come up with a recognisable noise that will help alert pedestrians and cyclists to the presence of vehicles that can be dangerously quiet.
The first electric London buses are due to be fitted with the sound in the autumn and it is hoped other parts of the country will follow.
But the possible options, including a bubbling noise and intermittent bleeps, have been greeted with scepticism by experts and campaigners.
John Welsman, from the policy team at Guide Dogs UK, who attended a TfL presentation last month, described the sounds as “all very spaceshippy” and said he would prefer electric buses to be fitted with a canned recording of the old Routemaster bus.
Welsman added: “They did play us a sound like someone blowing bubbles through a pipe. That just wouldn’t work. And there was an intermittent bleeping sound like an email alert that would increase or decrease in rapidity depending on the the speed of the vehicle. It was very irritating.”
“As a blind person I could spot the old Routemaster a mile off, because it was so distinctive, but that’s not what they are suggesting.”
He said most of the other six samplers sounded like futuristic vehicles from sci-fi films.
[...] From 1 July, under an EU regulation, all new models for electric vehicles seeking approval will have to emit a noise, known as an acoustic vehicle alerting system (Avas). Existing electric vehicles will need to be retrofitted with the sound from July 2021.
[...] TfL said its bus sound would comply with the regulation but maintained it did not have to mimic an engine noise. A spokesman said: “The regulation references a continuous sound that will increase as the vehicle accelerates, but there is no mention in the regulation that the noise needs to simulate that of an internal combustion engine.”
Spaceship buses seems like a good idea to me.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 06 2019, @09:08PM (4 children)
From TFS:
Thanks to our man Boris the Spider, we can have silent-running electric cars after 31/10!
Then we can run over blind folks with impunity. They don't deserve to live anyway, Damaged goods and all that.
#MUKGA
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday July 06 2019, @09:12PM
You're taking over for Benny Hill?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bradley13 on Sunday July 07 2019, @03:53AM (2 children)
With electric cars we finally have a chance to drastically reduce traffic noise. But no, due to worries about a tiny minority, quiet vehicles must be made noisy.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by choose another one on Sunday July 07 2019, @09:24AM
This. Noise pollution is reckoned to be the next biggest environmental problem after air pollution - see e.g. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/07/140701085328.htm [sciencedaily.com]
Yet we are now going to lock it in for another generation of transport vehicles.
Why? Silent or largely silent vehicles are not new, and not exactly rare in London either.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 07 2019, @09:46AM
Why, do you live under a bridge?