Electric cars

[peterboat]

4 minutes ago, billh said:

If and when I have to have an electric car,my sounder chip  ,if I had a choice, would be programmed with  the sound of  an English Electric 16SVT diesel running max 750 rpm . 4 turbos spooling up  as I pull  away from the lights, awesome?

The week before last a deltic was pulling some carriages and I think 2 scrap deltics to the booths scrap yard, it was an awesome sound as it moved off ,I was 50 yards away and felt sad that this amazing machine might be on its last journey.  I suppose it might be going to a collection but that line heads for Booths

[Wanderer Vagabond]

3 minutes ago, LadyG said:

We are not all perfect. I've managed a million or more miles without incident, but age has kicked in, so it's more difficult to look behind, anyways, I will adjust speed and position before manoeuvering, it is the car driver who has no awareness who poses most danger to cyclists, and I cannot distinguish sensible from insensible at a glance.

I would agree with that, but I do distinguish the sensible from potentially insensible by a 'glance'. Have I made eye contact with the driver? yes? then he's probably seen me, no? then assume that he hasn't and act accordingly. Because it is more difficult to look behind isn't really a reason not to do so.

[peterboat]

3 minutes ago, MHS said:

I may well be the only person on the forum to have driven a TVR Cerbera 4.5L for 6 years and more recently owned a Outlander PHEV. 
 

I’ve worked with the blind & partially sighted for years and there’s absolutely no way they wouldn’t hear the TVR coming. (From miles away) The PHEV has a noise generator that operates at lower speed. At higher speeds, tyre noise is predominantly the loudest sound in any normal car. 
 

Is there not a minimum standard for noise generators fitted to electric cars? I would have assumed that to be the case. 

I may well be the only person on the forum to have driven a TVR Cerbera 4.5L for 6 years and more recently owned a Outlander PHEV. 
 

I’ve worked with the blind & partially sighted for years and there’s absolutely no way they wouldn’t hear the TVR coming. (From miles away) The PHEV has a noise generator that operates at lower speed. At higher speeds, tyre noise is predominantly the loudest sound in any normal car. 
 

Is there not a minimum standard for noise generators fitted to electric cars? I would have assumed that to be the case. 

Tame, my 6.1 SRT V8, 5.4 shelby mustang or ZR1 vett were properly noisy! I was pulled in the Stang by plod for it being to loud! So funny as their was nowt they could do imports don't have drive by decibels in the reg doc ?

[MHS]

27 minutes ago, peterboat said:

Tame, my 6.1 SRT V8, 5.4 shelby mustang or ZR1 vett were properly noisy! I was pulled in the Stang by plod for it being to loud! So funny as their was nowt they could do imports don't have drive by decibels in the reg doc ?

I doubt that it was any louder.
As I understand it, there’s no maximum decibel rating for any standard road car. My TVR was barred from all uk track days as being too noisy, unless they were rare unrestricted days. I doubt your SRT was any/much noisier than my coupe. 

Edited November 1, 2020 by MHS

[peterboat]

35 minutes ago, MHS said:

I doubt that it was any louder.
As I understand it, there’s no maximum decibel rating for any standard road car. My TVR was barred from all uk track days as being too noisy, unless they were rare unrestricted days. I doubt your SRT was any/much noisier than my coupe. 

The bigger the engine the more noise it makes! It was chipped and would do allegedly 180 mph ,the stang was 660hp straight through exhaust awesome.  Have a look in your reg document and you will find a decibel rating in it, the police can enforce it I am afraid, imports don't have that

[MHS]

6 hours ago, peterboat said:

The bigger the engine the more noise it makes! It was chipped and would do allegedly 180 mph ,the stang was 660hp straight through exhaust awesome.  Have a look in your reg document and you will find a decibel rating in it, the police can enforce it I am afraid, imports don't have that

Having Googled it, you are right that there should have been a decibel rating on the V5. I sold the car in 2011, so can’t check it. I think most police had better things at the time than to do than to reinforce the rules. 
TVR were well known for doing things their way. (Like having no door handles and a three button press starting procedure) I reckon that the car would never have been built to the guidelines.  I was watching a friend’s track day at Cadwell in around 2009 and asked the marshalls if they would kindly check the volume level. I can’t remember what it was now, but they all chuckled, telling me I wouldn’t be lapping theIr circuit. 
At its first MOT in 2007, the TVR main dealer, knowing it would fail the emissions test used a Vauxhall to receive a satisfactory result!! Highly improper. 

Edited November 2, 2020 by MHS

[Allan(nb Albert)]

17 hours ago, haggis said:

Sorry, nothing to do with boating but I know that several people on here have electric road vehicles and I thought this article from a lady who puppy walks guide dogs was worth repeating.

 

"Today my husband and I with our two guide dogs had another near miss with an electric car. We were crossing a side road and it came in off the main road and passed very close in front of us. If it’d been a petrol or diesel engine, or if it’d had a sound emitter fitted, we’d have heard it, but, apart from the sound of the tyres on the road, it was virtually silent.

I am a confident guide dog handler but I can honestly say that silent electric vehicles scare me. I fear that it will take serious injury to a blind person, or even worse, death, before any meaningful legislation is put into place. If it happens to me or someone that I care about, I’ll be in court and I won’t rest until we have justice.

So please, if you drive an electric vehicle, switch on your sound emitter. After all, you wouldn’t drive at night without your lights on, it’s the same thing.

Many people will like this post but please don’t. I ask anyone who would have hit the like button to please hit the share button instead and pass this far and wide. I fear for our lives and those of these two amazing dogs."

 

Not something I had thought of but very relevant for those with poor eyesight. and hearing

 

haggis

Done a lot of voluntary work for guide dogs in the past including short term boarding for working and recently retired dogs. It is very much a partnership between dog and handler when it comes to crossing the road with the handler dependent on the dog to disobey a "forward'' command if it is unsafe to proceed. 

 

No doubt training of dogs and more particularly handlers is evolving to cope with electric vehicles and lobbying will have already taken place.

 

 

 

[peterboat]

2 hours ago, MHS said:

Having Googled it, you are right that there should have been a decibel rating on the V5. I sold the car in 2011, so can’t check it. I think most police had better things at the time than to do than to reinforce the rules. 
TVR were well known for doing things their way. (Like having no door handles and a three button press starting procedure) I reckon that the car would never have been built to the guidelines.  I was watching a friend’s track day at Cadwell in around 2009 and asked the marshalls if they would kindly check the volume level. I can’t remember what it was now, but they all chuckled, telling me I wouldn’t be lapping theIr circuit. 
At its first MOT in 2007, the TVR main dealer, knowing it would fail the emissions test used a Vauxhall to receive a satisfactory result!! Highly improper. 

Mine would pass emissions because they all had LPG on them for performance they ran petrol addition to the LPG so clean and quick! Nowadays I can't be bothered its strange how we change 

[phantom_iv]

10 hours ago, peterboat said:

New electric cars will make a noise but I think it's at slow speeds only if I remember what I read 

Yes, I think only those made from 2020 onwards.

 

In my experience, both as a driver and a pedestrian, at speeds of >20mph (approx), tyre/road noise becomes dominant over engine noise in most cases, and electric cars are quite easy to hear coming. The only time I've nearly been caught out is at low speeds in e.g. car parks, where hopefully consequences of being hit by one aren't so great.

[Dr Bob]

42 minutes ago, phantom_iv said:

Yes, I think only those made from 2020 onwards.

 

In my experience, both as a driver and a pedestrian, at speeds of >20mph (approx), tyre/road noise becomes dominant over engine noise in most cases, and electric cars are quite easy to hear coming. The only time I've nearly been caught out is at low speeds in e.g. car parks, where hopefully consequences of being hit by one aren't so great.

I drive an electric only vehicle ...new this year but no noise maker device. I am always wary of peeps stepping out but the main problem is car parks. You have to take it very slow in Tesco with many peeps just wandering down the car park (usually on the phone). You just have to drive very slowly. 

On normal roads, I think WV is right and lack of sound is not that much of an issue as bikes pose the same problem. Blind peeps will be taking care to cross and I will have plenty of warning.

[MHS]

53 minutes ago, phantom_iv said:

Yes, I think only those made from 2020 onwards.

 

In my experience, both as a driver and a pedestrian, at speeds of >20mph (approx), tyre/road noise becomes dominant over engine noise in most cases, and electric cars are quite easy to hear coming. The only time I've nearly been caught out is at low speeds in e.g. car parks, where hopefully consequences of being hit by one aren't so great.

Daft thing is our Outlander PHEV is a 2014  model and has a noise generator. Why on earth have other manufacturers not fitted these too?

 

You can turn it off and I read an article testing its ability as a shooting vehicle at night. Apparently you can sneak up on rabbits when lamping!!

[ditchcrawler]

59 minutes ago, phantom_iv said:

Yes, I think only those made from 2020 onwards.

 

In my experience, both as a driver and a pedestrian, at speeds of >20mph (approx), tyre/road noise becomes dominant over engine noise in most cases, and electric cars are quite easy to hear coming. The only time I've nearly been caught out is at low speeds in e.g. car parks, where hopefully consequences of being hit by one aren't so great.

And that was where my friend found the biggest problem with his bike. people would  just step out, as unexpectedly as a bike not making a noise

4 minutes ago, MHS said:

Daft thing is our Outlander PHEV is a 2014  model and has a noise generator. Why on earth have other manufacturers not fitted these too?

 

You can turn it off and I read an article testing its ability as a shooting vehicle at night. Apparently you can sneak up on rabbits when lamping!!

They did one of these on Quest TV the other day https://www.fwi.co.uk/machinery/4x4s/land-rover-defender-gets-450hp-electric-transformation

[phantom_iv]

1 hour ago, Dr Bob said:

I drive an electric only vehicle ...new this year but no noise maker device.

My mistake, should have looked it up. New models brought out since July 2019 have to have a noise maker, but existing models only need to be updated to be compliant by July '21. No requirement to retrofit to existing vehicles.

[TheBiscuits]

2 hours ago, Dr Bob said:

I drive an electric only vehicle ...new this year but no noise maker device. I am always wary of peeps stepping out but the main problem is car parks

 

Use a clothes peg and an elastic band to hold a playing card in the spokes ...

[Mike Todd]

15 hours ago, peterboat said:

New electric cars will make a noise but I think it's at slow speeds only if I remember what I read 

I tho0ught that at speed, tyre noise etc is a large part of the total noise made by a car.

[Murflynn]

I wonder how many car and bike drivers are aware of Highway Code item 8?

 

https://www.highwaycodeuk.co.uk/rules-for-pedestrians-crossing-the-road.html

[LadyG]

1 hour ago, TheBiscuits said:

 

Use a clothes peg and an elastic band to hold a playing card in the spokes ...

We saved bus tickets for our bikes, it made thespokes rather slack.

Edited November 2, 2020 by LadyG

[ditchcrawler]

3 hours ago, TheBiscuits said:

 

Use a clothes peg and an elastic band to hold a playing card in the spokes ...

We use to use a fag packet folded over the stay and held with an elastic band in the spokes of the back wheel. I wonder if you could do that with a modern fag packet

[Wanderer Vagabond]

3 hours ago, Murflynn said:

I wonder how many car and bike drivers are aware of Highway Code item 8?

 

https://www.highwaycodeuk.co.uk/rules-for-pedestrians-crossing-the-road.html

Speaking as one who is a pedestrian more than a driver these days, even when the Highway Code tells me I have priority I wont push my luck up against 3/4 ton of metal.

 

This is also a good one to catch drivers out (it caught me out on my first driving test). A set of traffic lights, double line of studs but no pedestrian controls, when does a pedestrian have priority?......

 

.......at all times as my examiner told me as he handed me my fail slip. The only error I made (at this precise set of traffic lights), but considered a major one to pass over an uncontrolled pedestrian crossing with a pedestrian with one foot on it waiting to cross (mistakenly thinking the green light for me was OK)

[roland elsdon]

3 hours ago, Murflynn said:

I wonder how many car and bike drivers are aware of Highway Code item 8?

 

https://www.highwaycodeuk.co.uk/rules-for-pedestrians-crossing-the-road.html

Highly aware, if you have started crossing a road on foot and some idiot driver turns on to it while you are crossing you have right of way. Have explained this to several local drivers fairly recently, and forcefully.

[Jim Riley]

3 hours ago, ditchcrawler said:

We use to use a fag packet folded over the stay and held with an elastic band in the spokes of the back wheel. I wonder if you could do that with a modern fag packet

We used Capstan packets, smoked em first. Cough! 

[Machpoint005]

12 hours ago, Dr Bob said:

>> You have to take it very slow in Tesco with many peeps just wandering down the car park <<

 

Same thing applies to IC engined cars, doesn't it?

8 hours ago, Murflynn said:

I wonder how many car and bike drivers are aware of Highway Code item 8?

 

https://www.highwaycodeuk.co.uk/rules-for-pedestrians-crossing-the-road.html

 

Me, for one. See post no.18.

[LadyG]

1 hour ago, Machpoint005 said:

 

Same thing applies to IC engined cars, doesn't it?

 

Me, for one. See post no.18.

I notice that drivers round here stop if anyone is near a pedestrian crosing, I thought they only had to stop if I was on the crossing itself. 

[Dr Bob]

9 hours ago, Machpoint005 said:

 

Same thing applies to IC engined cars, doesn't it?

 

You've not driven an electric car round Tesco yet, have you?

[ditchcrawler]

1 hour ago, Dr Bob said:

You've not driven an electric car round Tesco yet, have you?

I hate driving round supermarket car parks, people just pop out between cars and often dont look, its worse when its raining. I could be sarcastic and say I have never taken a car inside Tesco but pushing a trolley is bad enough. ?