I’m surprised more of these haven’t appeared
I’m all for safety but the sounds of EVs with the built-in warnings is enough to make me want to avoid them all together. Priuses sound like nests of mosquitoes.
I can only imagine the wrongful death lawsuit when a pedestrian steps out in front of someone that disabled this.
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The Pedestrian Safety Enhancement Act of 2010 (49 USC 30111) became law in Jan 2011 and gave EV makers (after several bad-faith delays) until Sept 1st 2019 to implement warning sounds under a certain speed. NHTSA estimates that the addition of pedestrian noisemakers will save 2,400 people from injuries, and could prevent between $250M and $320M in damages.
I’m glad that more disablers haven’t appeared. The EV makers got 8 years to figure that out. People who can’t see or hear them coming from only got more delays.
This also seems easy enough to check and disable FSD (when it ever arrives) if the car’s “noise” is an empty audio file.
And something insurance investigators will check in a car vs pedestrian accident.
I love the Bolt sound, it sounds like a space ship.
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