Americans and Europeans are going mad. They want vehicles to make noise. So says an article in The Economist. The same tenor is found here also.
And here I am, in Delhi where the ambient noise level is high enough to make one deaf by the time she reaches puberty. Perhaps that is why young girls walking on the streets without exception have their head phones plugged into their ears. How Indians, especially Delhi denizens are bothered by noise is annotated through personal experiences in this. You would understand then how disturbed I was to note that Americans and Europeans want to add noise-producing features, though only in hybrid automobiles.
The sources of noises from a well maintained vehicle are basically three: the engine, the tires and the wind. So, when a car is creeping out of its slot in the parking lot or from the garage (no wind noise and minimal tire noise at such speeds), you are not going to hear the car if it is running in the electric mode, as all the hybrids are supposed to be doing. The University of California, Riverside scientists carried out a research program to find out the level of warning the “natural” noise an internal combustion propelled car makes. Apparently it translates into 36 feet (about 11 m), with the head phone on. But, the hybrid “was able to sneak up to just 11 feet [about 3.3 m] before listeners knew where it was coming from.” With some background noise, the regular noise warning from the hybrid was too late in coming, after the vehicle had passed!
It is on such concerns, about the safety of pedestrians (there have been many stories how cars backing up in the drive way have injured children playing there) and visually handicapped people, a bill is going through the American Congress to establish a minimum level of sound for vehicles that are not using an internal combustion engine. What kind of a noise one needs to meet safety concerns? Definitely not the jarring and “nauseating e-jingle tunes” that is so fashionable in Delhi. “People want cars to sound like cars” with the noise of the tire roll on the pavement and the windy whoosh. But the level should match the purpose: not to scare people but only to warn them, just audibly.
There is the problem for Indians. We never do anything “just audibly”. Our loudspeakers are permanently set at the highest noise levels and our ears are tuned to them. So, the first hybrid imports will have much enhanced “sound generators”, to ensure that pedestrians are knocked down not by the cars but by the noise from them!
Raghuram Ekambaram
4 comments:
Enjoyed reading this post, Raghu. The cultural differences in the developed countries and in the developing countries extend to the levels of noise which are generated and tolerated as well I guess.
I had heard an anecdote that the defect in a car that the horn did not produce sound was not detected for full two years after the car was purchased because apparantly there was no occassion for sounding the horn.This was in a US city.Now can this ever happen in India? The 20th car in queue at a red light starts honking when the lights change. I cross the AIIMS everyday...despite hoardings that it is a hospital area and no-horn zone,the most familiar sound is that of horns everywhere.
It is an instance similar to the anecdote you mentioned that made me aware of the ambient noise issue. It was more than 30 years ago, when I reached the US, I was put up with an American family (their house on a main street)for the first night and throughout the night I was hearing sounds of "Whoosh" and I asked my host what that was. They said it was the trucks, and you must have seen the astonishment on my face, my going, "No horns?!?!"
Every morning as I wait for my chartered bus, a blue line goes past with the driver never having taken his fingers off the horn button. True.
Thanks.
Raghuram Ekambaram
I totally agree with the decision of American Congress to establish a minimum level of sound for vehicles. I think it is essential for the safety of the pedestrians and more so in context of India, where already the ambient noise level is too high and most of the time the pedestrian is walking on the road as she has no footpath to walk on. Let me give an example, the Green color low floor buses in Delhi, with their engines on the rear, hardly make any noise in the front side (can easily be compared to the hybrid automobiles). So many times it has happened with me ,either while walking on the road (due to non availibility of the walkway) or during driving that suddenly a Green color bus has appeared from behind being dangerously close to me or my vehicle. Imagine what could happen to a person who is visually challanged and depends on her sound receptors!
That is a wonderfully perceptive comment Saurabh, about the new low-floor buses that are indeed "noiseless" till you are abreast of their engines. This must be a new experience for Delhiites, given the noise levels of the regular buses, especially the Blue Line ones. Thanks for the visit and comment.
Raghuram Ekambaram
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