Toyota Adds External Speakers To Warn Pedestrians

HockeyPuck writes "When I was a kid, playing with my matchbox cars, I used to say 'VROOOM VROOOM' to pretend my toy cars had big engines in them. Well it seems that Toyota has decided to do the same thing with the Prius by optionally installing, in Japan, external speakers to alert pedestrians of oncoming Priuses."

Re:What a shame

[Daniel_Staal]

Also, it reminds me of the old rules requiring someone to walk ahead of automobiles with a bell, so you wouldn't scare the horses...

We have a car with an advantage (that it is silent at low speeds), and we cripple it because we aren't used to it.

Finally

[hsmith]

Automobiles are 508 compliant!

Re:Just when you think...

[mark-t]

And what do these people do to avoid people on bicycles, while not as likely to be fatal as a collision involving an automobile, a collision involving a bike and pedestrian can still very easily result in a serious injury requiring hospitalization.

Nissan Leaf

[Flammon]

Here's what the Nissan Leaf sounds like: http://nissan-leaf.net/2010/06/11/nissan-leaf-sound-revealed/ [nissan-leaf.net]

Re:Only Priuses?

[cgenman]

It's more of a Woo Woo [youtube.com].

Sample found!

[babboo65]

I was able to locate a copy of the factory default sound played for the Prius speakers to make a more noticable engine sound.

http://tiny.cc/kdrv9 [tiny.cc]

Re:Horn?

[mea37]

Lovely series of rationalizations. There are a few problems.

(1) The visually impaired are not the only affected population. Just because we teach people to look doesn't mean they always do. Just because failing to look already carries some risk doesn't make it ok to add more risk to that situation. Even if you do look, visibility is not always on your side.

(2) Just because your sample of one visually impaired person was happy to limit where he walked doesn't mean we all do. Many major streets have sidewalks and crosswalks; the visually impaired have just as much expectation of safety on those streets as you (presuming they've had proper low-vision mobility training).

(3) Just because people should drive carefully and attentively in neighborhoods does not mean they do. Distracted drivers flying around a corner at a 4-way stop are a big enough threat to the pedestrian in the crosswalk when their cars can be heard.

(4) Car sound may not tyipcally be reliable enough to be a decision-making factor, but it is often the only warning a pedestrian gets that he or she has made the wrong decision and needs to adjust immediately.

(5) Car sound often is a decision-making factor, because all other (reliable) decision-making factors say "I can go" but then the screaming engine of someone doing something stupid alerts me that maybe I'd better wait a minute.

Sorry you don't like it, but silent cars are a bad idea and frankly should be banned from the road. And before you ask, no the same does not apply to bicycles because they are not nearly as dangerous as cars.

Re:Horn?

[yurtinus]

The sample size hurts, but the biggest problem to me is the cars they include - there is no ICE corollary for the Prius. It *should* be the largest contributor to those statistics, but you can't isolate if the accidents are due to sound (or some other factor related to the HEV), or something else specific to the Prius (visibility, etc).