[gui-talk] Fwd: article: Sound move

[Steve Pattison]

To: acb-l at acb.org

Let us hope that more of these vehicle manufacturers include some sort 
of
audible warning of their approach because if we have to rely on the 
general
ignorence revealed a the end of this article many blind people are going 
to
be mown down on a regular basis.

Original URL:
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/11/07/lightning_thunder_noise/

Lightning to thunder with speed-creep beating V8 roar By Alun Taylor
Published Friday 7th November 2008 11:14 GMT 'Leccy Tech UK electric car
company Lightning is to fit its upcoming two-seaters with digitally 
recorded
V8 engine noise in a bid to help pedestrians and other road users hear 
the
otherwise silent sportscars coming.
And it'll aid the driver too, the company told Register Hardware, by
preventing accidental speeding.

Lightning's GT: now with added noise
With no engine noise in the cabin, Lightning's marketing chief Fiona 
Gaiger
said, drivers have no aural frame of reference to judge changes in 
speed.
The GT hardtop can do 0-60 in four seconds, and its four wheel-mounted
motors together deliver in the region of 700bhp. With all that power and
none of the feedback you get from engine noise, it's surprisingly easy 
to
find your foot driving the accelerator down, the company's engineers
discovered.
Gaiger maintained Lightning is the only 'leccy car company to have given
this speed-creep problem not only thought but come up with a solution 
too.

Be-beep!
Certainly, the issue of electric sportscars' near-silence has largely 
been
ignored by other manufacturers during their EV launches, despite the 
claims
made by some safety organisations that the road death toll will rocket 
as
pedestrians and cyclists move out in front of electric vehicles they 
didn't
hear approaching.


Mind you, they could always look, of course...

Cheers

G

  From glorious Devon, England.

Regards Steve
Email:  srp at internode.on.net
Windows Live Messenger:  internetuser383 at hotmail.com
Skype:  steve1963