However, I see no reason why the specification can't specify a particular electronic burbling noise from The Jetsons.
Go with something menacing, like the sound a TIE Fighter makes. Attention getting, futuristic, and you won't feel like you're riding around on Scooty-Puff Jr.
This is like changing ringtones on your phone. Can I download a twin turbo?
No, he's using it to refer to Asian vehicles (and colloquially, people immersed in the culture surrounding them). It's a bit racist, but more of a subcultural epithet.
I think the "rice" word (aside from the racial connotations) came from the stereotypical first modification being an absurdly large exhaust to try and lower the frequency of the typically smaller, higher-rev'ing / turbo'd Asian engines.
A noticeably large cylinder shoehorned on to the back of your car? Rice cooker.
I don't mind the gimmicks and trickery some people like the deception however I want to be able to get rid of it.
However if it plays in the regular speaker system and there's no off button it will get annoying very quickly.
Craziness.
The Esprit was historically a 4-pot, so never sounded that great. Until they added the V8 and it was a monster.
Quite popular in videogames as well.
Ugg. So they only contribute to the destruction of the street-level soundscape to the detriment of walkers, cyclists, sidewalk cafes, and birds.
The only people not looking, relying in their ears and therefor constantly causing dangerous traffic situations over here are tourists. Those are the only ones blindly stepping into traffic because they don't hear the bicycles coming and therefor assume there is no traffic.
The need to have traffic go "vroom, vroom" in order to avoid accidents is just pathetic, and utterly unsustainable in a future where all traffic is likely to be silent by nature.
Imagine living a place that would be as nice an quiet as a village on a sunday if it wasn't for all those vehicles creating artificially amplified noise pollution. Ridiculous.
During a transition period I can see it being a problem since listening for cars it can be a strong habit. I had problems with cross walks in the US at first since many of them don't emit a sound when it's green. I would often stand around subconsciously waiting for the sound to indicate that I can cross, and I'd miss my turn.
I could walk around screaming at the top of my lungs to warn people when I'm walking by, but maybe I should just try not to hit them instead (and face prison time if I kill someone by doing so.)
There's one situation where drivers don't face penalties if they hit and injure/kill a pedestrian: if that pedestrian caused the accident and the driver had no way of preventing it.
For example, if a pedestrian assumes there is no traffic and steps into the road without looking, just feet from an oncoming-but-silent car.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/30/opinion/why-drivers-get-aw...
"Here are a few common scenarios under which a pedestrian may be found at least partially at fault for an accident involving a vehicle:
* jaywalking, or crossing in the middle of the street, outside of a crosswalk
* crossing against the traffic signal (i.e. in the crosswalk but against a red "Do Not Walk" command)
* entering a street or highway while intoxicated, and
* walking along highways, bridges, or causeways where pedestrian access is prohibited."
http://www.alllaw.com/articles/nolo/auto-accident/pedestrian...
You know those tire commercials where a kid goes running out into traffic between cars in a residential neighborhood and the driver is happy they had Michelin tires because they were able to stop in time? Imagine the kid ran out half a second later. Should the driver be charged?
Again, I'm not sure what's unbelievable about anything I said.
I know people can run in to the street without warning. I know drivers get away with no punishment if somebody darts in to the street.
In fact, my point was that drivers get away with no punishment _almost every time they kill a pedestrian_. In NYC they have less than a 5% chance of even being arrested, much less convicted. Driving a car is probably a great way to commit murder.
Also, yes, I think the driver should be charged for driving so fast in a residential neighborhood that they can't stop in time to prevent killing a kid. If I recklessly [flew my helicopter/drove my tank/rammed my hovercraft/ran my bobsled] in to a child it would be met with outrage, so why do we apply different rules to automobiles? (Spoiler - because automobiles are convenient and while we claim otherwise, we just don't care enough about dead kids to change culture).
http://freakonomics.com/2014/05/01/the-perfect-crime-a-new-f...
But apparently you believe there is such a thing as a speed so low that you cannot hit a pedestrian. Have you ever watched some Russian dashboard camera footage where pedestrians throw themselves at cars that are sometimes completely stopped? Or my previous example of someone walking into the side of your car? I've had that happen, where a bicyclist ran through an intersection without looking and ended up in the back of my pickup truck. Tell me that's my fault. The responding officer sure didn't.
"There's one situation where drivers don't face penalties if they hit and injure/kill a pedestrian: if that pedestrian caused the accident and the driver had no way of preventing it."
If a person leaps in front of a big rig in order to kill themselves, then no, the driver is not responsible. If a kid runs after a soccer ball in the street and gets run over because they driver didn't stop in time, then the driver was probably going too fast for the circumstances.
Mind you, I like cars. I may walk to work but I drive very quickly on the autobahn a few times a year and it's a blast. Limited access roadways with _incredibly_ good visibility and road conditions are great places to go fast. Cities and towns with cars, bikes, walkers, and anything else you can imagine all using the same street space are great places to go slow.
So allow me to clarify my original post: There's at least one situation where drivers don't face penalties.
And then let me word it a little more strongly: There's only one situation where drivers, under the law, don't face penalties: when the driver was not at fault. Because the situations you listed are those where the driver legally could have faced penalties but did not.
Consideration for blind people is an important argument but it seems so much saner to require quiet vehicles to have a radio transponder that can send exact speed and direction rather than having people identify these by hearing beeps or fake engine noise.
We've been trained as a people to respond to environmental cues. The learning period to adjust to different cues (beeps, phone apps etc) is another phrase for 'lots of people get hit by silent cars'.
I'd suggest a period of dual cues - make noise, AND whatever else we imagine could help us not get run over. Eventually the noise part might fade away.
The learning period for "vehicles don't make noise at speeds that can kill you" has already begun. Priuses have been around for 10 years.
The 2013 Lotus Evora, a series hybrid vehicle with an electric motor and a fixed gearbox, took this to the point of silliness. Not only did they provide fake engine sounds, they provided shift paddles and required the driver to shift software-simulated gears. They even provided a momentary loss of power during simulated gear shifting. (http://www.autoblog.com/2013/01/22/lotus-pondering-fake-shif...) The driver could select different sounds, or turn all this off and just let the electric motor do its thing, which yielded better acceleration. Here's a demo of all the sound options: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1CzoqEyACQ). Options include simulated straight-6, American V-8, and V-12 engines, plus some turbine-like sounds.
After some snickering from the automotive press, this feature was dropped from later models.
Many electric cars already have an outside noise generator, mandated by law in the EU and US. These switch off above 25 MPH or so, so they don't contribute to freeway noise.