Calif. Says Green Cars Need More Noise Pollution

Stopnoise, would you mind if you skipped me when selecting contacts in the "share this story" feature?
On a side note, I agree with edbr, and to a degree, rabidlemur.

"The state Department of Motor Vehicles says more than 300,000 of the vehicles are on state roads. Officials say they don't keep statistics on pedestrian accidents involving those vehicles."
How do you know you have a problem without data to back it up? Sounds like hogwash to me.

I am glad that someone noticed this problem and is doing something to protect the public.

rabidlemur gets my point.

we'll all agree that there's noise pollution. but the group of people who believe we should live in complete silence, without ambient noise, like you, stopnoise, cannot be more than a tiny micro subset of the US population.

call me inattentive or irresponsible or whatever other names you wish to use to make you feel justification. i wish i was so perfect that i wouldn't have needed the road vibes that day. i wish i could say that i have never made a mistake while driving, or that i've never honked the horn because someone almost hit my car. an invariable trait of all humankind is that we are not, nor ever will be, perfect.

but i sure appreciated the loud noises that helped me and others avoid an accident and/or certain death.

the fact is, most people value noise for its benefits. make the hybrid hum. i want to hear it coming from behind me. if you don't like that, move somewhere else.

You know what stopnoise, the world is a noisy place, you don't like it? move to the country, Jesus Christ man, the world cant be absolutely silent so you can watch Sex and the City in a fucking vacuum.

You are so busy telling everyone how to live and yet you could help yourself by removing yourself from the noise or and stay with me on this, DEAL WITH IT!

Do you think that the people in cars could stop if there is someone in the road?

I don't consider "More Noise" a Good Solution or the right approach. Blind people should already have far more technology on their hands.

edbr, If I am telling you are off topic it is because you are. But you are having a problem to see that!

The topic in question here is about making hybrid more noisy because the blind alleged said that they cannot hear them. I debated each and every argument you laid out and you just came with corruptive justifications. Better yet you are explaining to us why people need noise based in their own irresponsible ways to drive.

You have a problem to process in your mind that (you are not in a cocoon) when you are on the streets and the noise that you make affects people in their homes. You are forgetting that a community is not composed only of you, a driver or a pedestrian. A community is composed of inhabitants living inside of their houses and buildings, pedestrians on the street and drivers on the road.

***In your head you are denying inhabitants existence. In your perception, inhabitants does not exist!

No one is getting mad here, your assumptions are wrong again.

I'll admit ahead of time that I have had very little experience with blind pedestrians as I drive, but from the few experiences I have had I surmise that most blind people really don't seem to care about stepping in front of traffic on a town street. They have a white cane that stands out, they know it, and they also know that cars are legally supposed to stop for them no matter the circumstances. My car makes all kinds of god awful racket, and I've had blind people step right out in front of me. Not like they didn't know I was there, but like they knew I had to stop and they did not give a rats ass that they made me slam on my brakes.

So, given my limited experience I don't see how this will change things all that much.

i would like to have a reasonable debate with you, so please refrain from the name calling and emotional outbursts.

"The rail road track construction was the first engineer mistake from the beginning as they could have built it with overpasses and fences around towns so the train would never meet cars and people. Safety Problem resolved! No noise need! "

1) US cities and towns have relied on trains running through them for product import/export and transportation since the train's inception.
2) where would the money come from for train overpasses? do you realize the structural strength an overpass must bear to support a loaded train? if roads overpassed train tracks, there would be many more crossings. many towns where i live still cannot afford to build overpasses over train tracks, even despite the regular occurrences of deaths at crossings, which HAVE decreased since installing audible and visual alerts.

"No amount of noise will prevent you from avoiding an accident but attention will!"

attention is not a constant. have you ever been involved in an auto accident? if yes, then your attention lapsed. nobody is perfect, but they deserve all the protection our society can offer to avoid their early demise and hopefully learn from the mistake. maybe this is where we disagree?

"Today we have heat sensors that can activate and ring the Fire Department or your cell phone in case of trouble."

in most cases, people will be overcome by smoke or heat within 10 minutes from the incendiary stage of a fire. 10 minutes from ignition. show me ANY fire department that will be on scene, pulling out victims within 10 minutes. and don't expect your cell-phone to pull you out of a burning building.

"(Are you inventing this type of events to support your noisy cause?)"

there's the pointing finger ... with 3 others pointing back at you.

http://current.com/items/88941229_hybrids_too_quiet_eight_year_old_boys_mother_t...

"There is a big difference between a driver alerting other driver in case of emergency by using the horn once from a situation where a horn is continually blasting on all the time while his is driving on the road."

yes, there is, and there are already laws prohibiting excessive or unnecessary use of a vehicle's horn.

"You do not know that neither do I as we do not have a statistical evidence that noise saves lives."

audible alerts most definitely save lives. why do they place the 'bump-strips' on the side of roadways? the loud noise (and vibration) will alert a distracted driver, or wake one who has fallen asleep. earlier, i said, people are not perfect. i'm a paramedic, but i've fallen asleep driving before after a busy 24 hour shift. i was one of the lucky ones awakened by the vibe strip.

"If you are blind, there are quiet technologies in the market that will help you get around. You can get a phone with a sensor that detects any kind of car movement with an ear phone that will send a signal to you."

is a little beep coming from your street corner so bad that every visually impaired person should have to invest in a $2000 sonar phone or cane? would you be willing to pay more in taxes to provide these phones or canes to the visually impaired? i lived 150 feet (from the speaker) of an audible crosswalk, and i could not hear it inside my house.

"Blowing 99.9% of the population with noise because of 1% of the population seems to be a very selfish and discriminatory measure to me."

what seems selfish and discriminatory is that you refuse to recognize the benefits that (certain) noise provides for virtually all of our society.

"Please edbr stay on topic ok!"

don't chide me in attempt to make yourself seem more credible. i am simply having a debate with you. this is what current is all about. if you're going to get mad, then we can respectfully agree to stop this debate.

edbr said:
should trains not blow their horns before a crossing?

Stopnoise said:
The rail road track construction was the first engineer mistake from the beginning as they could have built it with overpasses and fences around towns so the train would never meet cars and people. Safety Problem resolved! No noise need!

edbr said:
should vehicle horns be disabled?

Stopnoise said:
Your car horn is to be use only on situation of emergencies. I am a driver and by observance most of the drivers today use the horn to push people in traffic and other silly situation as calling friends and other things I have no time to mention it here but many know it. No amount of noise will prevent you from avoiding an accident but attention will! So lack of Education, speed and reckless behavior in traffic is the first cause of accidents. Noise argument on safety it is false.

edbr said:
should fire alarms be silent?

Stopnoise said:
Today we have heat sensors that can activate and ring the Fire Department or your cell phone in case of trouble.
Problem resolved!

edbr said:
a young boy rode his scooter into a street, from between two cars, unaware and unable to hear the approaching hybrid vehicle, and was struck.

Stopnoise said: (Are you inventing this type of events to support your noisy cause?)
Just read the horn issue again! Lack of Education, speed and reckless behavior in traffic is the first cause of accidents. Noise argument on safety it is false.

edbr said:
the reason vehicle horns are required on all street-legal vehicles is for accident prevention.

Stopnoise said:
You are trying to bring a justification for noise using a very different situation here.
There is a big difference between a driver alerting other driver in case of emergency by using the horn once from a situation where a horn is continually blasting all the time while his is driving on the road. Your example arguments are totally off from the discussion in question.

edbr said:
i assure you the number of lives saved by 'pollutant' noises far outreach the number of people annoyed or impinged upon by noise pollution.

Stopnoise said:
You do not know that neither do I as we do not have a statistical evidence that noise saves lives. We do however have many statistics that noise affects the health of many individuals and driving reckless can cause accidents for sure.

The true fact it is that many people that makes mistakes in traffic wants to blame something else for their mistake. It is the ultimate form of denial. To say you could not hear someone approaching is bogus because you can pay attention and see them. If you are blind, there are quiet technologies in the market that will help you get around. You can get a phone with a sensor that detects any kind of car movement with an ear phone that will send a signal to you.

Blowing 99.9% of the population with noise because of 1% of the population seems to be a very selfish and discriminatory measure to me.

Please edbr stay on topic ok!

should trains not blow their horns before a crossing?

should vehicle horns be disabled?

should fire alarms be silent?

how about visually-impaired crosswalk beepers?

while i understand the need to reduce excessive sound pollution, there are very necessary reasons for certain 'pollutants.'

a young boy rode his scooter into a street, from between two cars, unaware and unable to hear the approaching hybrid vehicle, and was struck. obviously, he should have known or been taught to look before entering a roadway ...

BUT, the reason vehicle horns are required on all street-legal vehicles (and the reasoning behind this initiative) is for accident prevention. to save lives.

i assure you the number of lives saved by 'pollutant' noises far outreach the number of people annoyed by noise pollution.

is the value of your fellow man's safety trumped by the value of a noise-pollution-free environment?

It sounds like a good plan.