AutoblogGreen

And you'll have the deaf complaining that too much noise from vehicles contributes to ear damage. This is silly and not worth the costs.

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With a little looking through the literature (Society of Automotive Engineers as an example) it becomes obvious that even for IC engined vehicles the majority of radiated noise is from the tires....

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I've read this reports before, and every time I have the same question. Why the hell are these people crossing the street when the light is red in the first place? Blind or not, I would probably want to wait until I knew it was safe to cross.

Robu is right, as well. This entire campaign is ludicrous. Ban bicycles and rickshaws, they're silent, too!

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It's not as ridiculous as you think. You'd be surprised how many times I roll around in a Prius or Alitma hybrid rental and have to tap my horn at people who are not deaf, but are oblivious to me being behind them in parking lots. I have the same problem in my Civic hybrid when it's in start stop mode... I see sometimes people get startled when I shift into gear and the car goes on. Tires are loud on the highway. Not so much in electric-only Prius speeds.

As someone who rides a motorcycle, rides a bicycle to commute a lot, and used to ride a skateboard all the time, I do think that the concern isn't totally unfounded or as ridiculous as the prior poster. People I think take for granted how much they use sound in navigating through traffic as pedestrians. But since all cars have radios, it's a pretty easy fix that requires nothing more than sound coming out of speakers. If you see a Tesla or Fisker electric car driving down the street blasting AC/DC Highway to Hell sometime next year, you'll know it's me.

The problem is, what if I'm off in some back-country road and I want to enjoy zipping along silently until my car runs out of juice and leaves me stranded?

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How about the drivers of the cars watch out for pedestrians? They're blind, not invisible.

Plus, electric drivetrains do make noise, just not a noise most people associate with cars. As they become more popular, people will become accustomed to it.

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I think they should emit the sound of the Jetson's flying car; think how cool and futuristic that'd be to hear zipping by.

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Why not employ some local radio frequency emission. Blind people could have a device that tell them by sound how close, fast and where cars are in the surroundings.

Modern society has too much noise pollution already, and forcing electric vehicles to make more noise is ridiculous.

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I think the blind have a reasonable concern. But I must agree with Peter, I've noticed that a lot of drivers don't pay too much attention when cruising at low speeds, especially in parking lots. a couple weeks ago I was in a parking lot walking to my car when this guy in a Prius was looking down instead of where he was going and almost hit me. He was stopped behind another car, so I walked in between. the other car started to drive off and so did he, not realizing I was right in front of him. I had to jump to get out of the way.

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This is yet another attempt to block the rise and support of electric cars. Big oil loves to twist everything into a negative.

Big oil doesn't cause global warming and don't buy electric cars because they are too silent...wtf? Whatever, Big oil, i mean Fed, oh wait i mean Big Oil.

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Bart Simpson and a bunch of megaphones. Testing, testing, TESTING.
http://www.clubgpstore.com/art/hammer.mpeg
Retrofit horn.
http://www.clubgpstore.com/itemview.asp?itemid=121

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Lack of noise is my reason for not wanting an electric motorcycle. I used to think it would be cool, until I realized the added safety of people being able to hear you coming.

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