<< LOSER CLUB ~ MAIN ~ NO RESPONSIBILITY TAKEN >>
DEATH RIDES QUIETLY
Michael Stipe was right. Hybrid cars are killers:
Jenny Sant’Anna was so excited. She had waited months for just the right hybrid, choosing a Toyota Highlander because, though she wants great mileage, she also needs space to cart around her two elementary school kids and three classmates. It was during her first trip out of the driveway on a warm August morning that Sant’Anna learned about one of the dangerous drawbacks of driving a hybrid: It’s so quiet that pedestrians can’t hear it when it’s starting up or idling, and they often walk right into the path of the moving vehicle.
Via Mickey Kaus and hybrid-alert reader Everett P. Ingalls. For safety’s sake, I urge that hybrid owners install internal combustion “safety alarms”—something like this might work—to their noiseless deathmobiles.
I’m surprised that they haven’t installed those beeping alarms that trucks have here, that are set to go off whenever the vehicle backs up. In fact, a lot of new SUVs and trucks have these items, I believe. Funny that the makers of the rad new hybrids didn’t think of this.
If you ask me every car in America that is driven by a woman with kids should be equipped with a batter of alarms that go off whenever she so much as makes a right turn. In between the distraction of the screeching babies, the rioting brats, the cell phone growing out of the drivers ear (where she has been engaged in a conversation with her best friend for the past two hours, while shopping, running after her kids, looking through her purse for her credit card, etc.)—she’s usually too distracted to drive properly.
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2006 02 08 at 11:02 AM • permalinkThat should be “battery of alarms.”
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2006 02 08 at 11:02 AM • permalinkRead your Kipling. In the early days of automobiles in Britain, they were saddled with all sorts of mandatory ‘safety’ provisions, one being a footman who marched in front blowing a horn.
That was a canard of course, the racket those autos made was sufficient to terrify every living being within 100 yards.
However, these politically correct hybrids, being prone to silent murder (and come to think of it, their potential victims), may benefit from some such provision. if not a steam whistle and a copy of the Rules of the Road, it may as well be a teenager riding shotgun with the very latest earsplitting video game.
Posted by Insufficiently Sensitive on 2006 02 08 at 11:13 AM • permalinkThat was a canard of course, the racket those autos made was sufficient to terrify every living being within 100 yards.
AFAICR, some of the early automobiles were steam powered. I’ve been near steam-powered tractors (as in farm equipment) while they’re running, and they’re stunningly quiet for things their size.
As big as a semi, and it made as much noise as a sewing machine…
Posted by Rob Crawford on 2006 02 08 at 11:22 AM • permalinkI just hope Ford will get over its current financial malaise by moving on from this love affair with noiseless deathmobiles by mass producing the Aston Martin V8 Vantage and pricing it more reasonably (AUD$223K is a bit steep).
You’ll never miss hearing that thing coming.
Posted by ausdiplomad on 2006 02 08 at 11:30 AM • permalinkWhat about the idiots who are loping along with earbuds in their ears blasting their favorite noise? Even a klaxon wouldn’t get through to them.
Or how about the aforementioned cell phone users? Or the deaf, for that matter?
How about just everybody watch the hell where they’re going?
(sorry, haven’t had my caffeine yet)
P.J. O’Rourke made the same point about bicycles 25 years ago in The American Spectator. His indictment of NYC’s new bike lanes (since painted over) was so good Car & Driver reprinted it.
Posted by Rittenhouse on 2006 02 08 at 11:47 AM • permalinkUnless she’s a right-wing death-beast, good Jenny is responsible for not running over pedestrians. She is supposed to avoid them; they’re not supposed to avoid her.
Posted by Andy Freeman on 2006 02 08 at 11:54 AM • permalinkAndy is, of course, right. Inattentive pedestrians are not the problem, inattentive drivers are.
Rittenhouse—thanks for the tip on O’Rourke. I’m always on the lookout for his articles.
Posted by tim maguire on 2006 02 08 at 12:19 PM • permalinkI’m surprised that they haven’t installed those beeping alarms that trucks have here, that are set to go off whenever the vehicle backs up. In fact, a lot of new SUVs and trucks have these items, I believe. Funny that the makers of the rad new hybrids didn’t think of this.
My Prius has exactly that, and I am surprised if others do not, as it seems so obviously necessary. Yet the article seems to suggest that no one has ever thought of this:
Some suggest hybrid manufacturers add a beep that would go off when backing up. “Maybe we need music or a bell, like an ice-cream truck,” said Prius owner Kristen Carlisle of San Jose.
It couldn’t be that the reporter doesn’t actually know what he’s talking about, could it?
Sweet, I have my new Windows startup sound. Thanks Tim.
Posted by Matt in Denver on 2006 02 08 at 12:58 PM • permalinkShooting out tear gas while backing up, would drive away all lurking pedestrians.
Posted by perfectsense on 2006 02 08 at 02:11 PM • permalink“Battery!” I get it! Har!
I work for the evil MSM, and we just did an evil piece touting evil hybrids despite my objections that when the truth about crapmachines is known, there will be a backlash like you wouldn’t believe.
Posted by Monroe Doctrine on 2006 02 08 at 05:37 PM • permalinkAnd sad to say, a good many bike lanes in Manhattan are still that. However, thanks to Email and Web technology, bike messengers are no longer the smelly death-dealing hellriders that menaced the streets in massive numbers even 10 years ago.
(True story—I saw the O.J. verdict on the Jumbotron in Times Square. The Square was full of bike messengers, screaming and hoisting their bikes into the air. I have never felt so white in my life.)
Posted by Monroe Doctrine on 2006 02 08 at 05:40 PM • permalinkI don’t understand the conservative (or is it just conservative male?) antipathy toward hybrid cars. I need guidance here, I’m a conservative male who didn’t get the memo apparently.
I suspect the real reason has something to do with testosterone.
Posted by Dave in Chicago on 2006 02 08 at 06:02 PM • permalinkGood question, Dave; it has to do with:
a) Federal governmental subsidies for the purchase of hybrids, so you can feel good about yourself on our dime;
b) Usually high exaggeration (40% rather than the usual 20%) of fuel efficiency; and
c) Smugness of the greenie bobos in paradise.
Posted by Monroe Doctrine on 2006 02 08 at 06:09 PM • permalinkMankind has invested more than four million years of evolution in the attempt to avoid physical exertion. Now a group of backward-thinking atavists mounted on foot-powered pairs of Hula-Hoops would have us pumping our legs, gritting our teeth, and searing our lungs as though we were being chased across the Pleistocene savanna by saber-toothed tigers. Think of the hopes, the dreams, the effort, the brilliance, the pure force of will that, over the eons, has gone into the creation of the Cadillac Coupe de Ville. Bicycle riders would have us throw all this on the ash heap of history.
- P.J. O’Rourke
#6, Otter - “Loud pipes save lives” (and yes, the wife does have a Harley, and people notice it in traffic more often than my BMW R1100s). At least the Harley riders have got something for their noise. They will usually pick up about 10%, whereas the Japanese bikes usually gain noise at the expense of horsepower (or very small gains at high speed balanced by losses down low where you could use it.)
Re 18, 23, 24—Correct. Bottom line is hybrids are expensive petrol-powered cars. Owners are coming up for a shock in a year or two when they have to replace the battery pack. Ouch - big dollars. The figures seem to be closely guarded but it looks like the cost of battery replacement will cancel out fuel savings. This is not economic efficiency - it’s green politics on four wheels.
Don’t what it’s like in the US but in Oz for the price of a Prius (a small car) you can get a 5-seater full-size 4 litre car that lopes along easily and still gets reasonable fuel consumption.
Posted by walterplinge on 2006 02 08 at 08:55 PM • permalinkOooooh… you want them to notice you…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 02 08 at 09:14 PM • permalinkLiving on a busy aterial road as I do, I like to dream that one day all cars will be nearly silent. However, being realistic, I’ve noticed that there are three main sources of traffic noise on my road:
1) wog racers with hotdogs on the exhausts and clashing gearboxes.
2) dim-wits who play techno at ear-shredding volume.
3) large trucks either accelerating or applying their airbrakes.Even if every single vehicle in this country was a hybrid, the road would still be noisy.
Posted by blandwagon on 2006 02 08 at 09:22 PM • permalinkThe biggest real advantage of electric cars is that they are mechanically simple (motor doesn’t have all the pistons, valves, gaskets etc of internal combustion engines; flat torque curve means that multiple gears are unnecessary; no need for an exhaust system; etc). This means that maintenance should be simplified, time between services should be longer, and the car should be more reliable. Hybrids are vastly more complicated than either pure electric cars or conventional ones, leaving only the largely illusory environmental benefits.
yes electric cars are better than hybrids but noones invented a battery that can store enough juice to last 200 miles, which is the distance you need to make electric cars practicle.
hybrids are one of the great cons of the past century and noone in the msm has a bad word to say about them.
car makers should concentrate on new technology like turning off some cylinders when the engine is cruising, this saves heaps of petrol…...modern turbo diesels, alternative fuels like ethanol.
#2/#3: Are you sure that your name is ‘Andrea’ if you’re complaining about women drivers?
#6: Most people I know with Harley’s install shotguns (loud pipes) as it helps the obliviot car-operators (very few are entitled to be called ‘drivers’) hear them. Bike riders have this ‘thing’ about being turned into road-pizza.
#29(1): Grrr-rrr… clowns in front-wheel drive cars who put massive wings on the boot for aerodynamics. Can anyone see the flaw here? Same dickheads who race on the streets think themselves to be good drivers but are too gutless to get on a racetrack and prove it against people who can actually drive.
#29(3): You’re thinking of the exhaust-brake (better known as the jake-brake) - the loud noise made by using engine compression to slow down. Most cities ban their use in residential areas.
T’is true that cars are required to give way to pedestrians on the footpath at all times but it is extremely difficult to see them sometimes. A lot of peds seem to be indestructible and just wander behind cars because the car “should” stop. It doesn’t always work that way though. Steel/Plastic on flesh/bone is a disasterous combination.
Posted by Jai Normosone on 2006 02 09 at 01:16 AM • permalinkyes electric cars are better than hybrids but noones invented a battery that can store enough juice to last 200 miles, which is the distance you need to make electric cars practicle.
You can do it with fuel cells, but they
1) Are more complicated that batteries, and potentially need more maintenance.
2) Still produce pollution, just elsewhere.
Another hazard that has crept up on Americans to knee them in the groin is ....
Diabetes!
Public tv zzzbzzzz I think,spent a good funf minuten on its news catastrophizing about the new killer disease to attack Harlem.
Fifty percent of Harlem dwellers suffer this disease and the American taxpayer is financing the treatments,mucho medecines.
Hey I thought people were starving in Harlem? Anyhow today in Media an article predicted the demise of the ABC if they continued to produce no drama..
No drama -why everythin at the abc is a drama -Australian Story,Compass,Four corners,the don’t get dirty report,the snooze,Hateline,Inciters,MediaWitch,ScarethePacific -their motto has always been “never let the truth get in the way of a good story.”“Loud pipes save lives”
And annoy the living shit out of anyone within 200 yards. I am so sick of these attention-starved yahoos.
I’ve been riding for 20 years. Never had a close call. That’s because while Joe Straight-Pipe is blasting through his mommy issues, I’m (A) keeping myself seen so I don’t need to be heard, and (B), when I do need to be heard, using a switch located on the left handgrip, marked “Horn.”
At least the Harley riders have got something for their noise. They will usually pick up about 10%
Bullshit. The vast majority of Harley loud-pipers I see are running striaght pipes. That’s a 10% loss.
whereas the Japanese bikes usually gain noise at the expense of horsepower (or very small gains at high speed balanced by losses down low where you could use it.)
Not nearly as loud as the HD’s (not even close), but otherwise a qualified agreement. Personally, I jetted my carbs to match my Yosh pipe and nicely filled in a flat spot in the powerband. And if it’s 5% louder than stock, I’d be shocked. Most guys who put pipes on their sportbikes don’t do this, but at least they’re just wasting their money, not setting off car alarms, waking people up at 2 am from five streets away, or blowing out my wife’s eardrum at a stoplight while doing the “I just can’t wait until I get to the men’s room at work to twist something” routine.
The majority of the voting public doesn’t ride. The majority of the voting public does have ears. Keep blastin’ ‘em, all you Rebels Without a Clue, and watch what happens to your riding privileges. And mine, thank you oh so fucking much.
10.Andy, I’m a rwdb and I ran over a bicycle courier. I know it’s not a pedestrian, but I get points for that, don’t I?
Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2006 02 09 at 06:36 AM • permalinkRunning over a bicycle courier often requires a great deal of skill.
Posted by Andy Freeman on 2006 02 09 at 10:11 AM • permalinkSome of the swampies are upset about certain hybrids because they have increased performance and aren’t little cars. Since the fuel savings in bumping a work truck from 10 to 13 mpg is greater than the fuel savings of bumping a toyota from 30 to 40, they’re either inumerate or not actually concerned about fuel savings.
To them, the “you can’t go far and it’s got to be tiny” properties of electric cars are features, not bugs.
Posted by Andy Freeman on 2006 02 09 at 10:15 AM • permalinkOr do you want a car folks will REALLY notice?
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 02 09 at 08:59 PM • permalinkNilk
I cleaned up a pushbike rider on a roundabout. He was mad as a hornet and confronted me asking why I hit him. (That’s how I knew he was OK). I felt really bad.
$40 bucks in bike repairs, $100 odd fine and 2 points later, I still reckon that pushbike riders can often be their own worst enemy. Ditto for some motorcycle riders; the last thing you expect when driving in single lane with double centre lines is for a motor cycle to ROAR up on the wrong side of the road. There is a God. He got booked by a walloper waiting just up the road. (The same wall who booked me the previous year for speeding through a school zone - it was 5 minutes later than I usually travelled through there and I didn’t realise it was school zone time!! And I made the mistake of saying that I was running late - I didn’t KNOW that I was running late, until I was asked why I was speeding in the school zone. Needless to say, it appeared that I said “I was speeding ‘cos I was late”. Bugger.)44Kae, in this case the bloody idiot rode across the road and under my car. He got a few scrapes and the bike got a bit bent, but he was ok.
It cost me an apology and a call to his work to make sure he was okay. I also offered to cover the repair costs. He was gobsmacked that I would offer, and when I called work, they were, too.
Apparently getting run over is an occupational hazard for bike couriers; so much so that an apology is almost unheard of!
LOL My friends gave me lots of congrats for running him down, though.
Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2006 02 09 at 11:53 PM • permalink#45 Nilk
I guess he didn’t see you….My
targetvictim was a skinny bloke in black bike shorts, etc. I really didn’t see him. I gave him a lift to Health Services to check he was OK. And paid for his bike repairs. He calmed down when he realised that I hadn’t deliberately cleaned him up. (I didn’t see him cos it was winter, windows were up, and I had just driven through a cold patch which fogged up my windows.)
My friends said “Why wasn’t he using the bike path by the river…”.LOL, bike couriers have a death wish!!
There was debate this week on ABC radio local about bikes on trains in peak hour. I say, lettem ride the trains with their bikes in peak hour - it’ll keep them off the street.
Page 1 of 1 pages
Members:
Login | Register
| Member List
On the bright side, it might keep the idiots who step out in front of your push bike in hospital and hence unable to do so.