- BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD: This might be the most dreadful idea in American Business since… well… the idea of selling different telephone rings for 99 cents: “So safety experts, worried that hybrids pose a threat if pedestrians, children and others can’t hear them approaching, want automakers to supply some digitally enhanced vroom. Indeed, just as cellphones have ring tones, ‘car tones’ may not be far behind — an option for owners of electric vehicles to choose the sound their cars emit.” Oh, yeah, this is an old idea, it’s very popular in HELL. [NYT via Balloon Juice]
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{ 81 comments }
After 10pm, though, you have to set your car to vibrate.
You just KNOW that there will be cars playing the fight songs from sports teams, trucks with Confederate flags in the window playing Proud to Be an American, neo-hippies with Grateful Dead songs going, etc.
Very very bad idea.
As an overweight, greying, 48 year old white man with two kids and a mortgage, I am torn between “Fight the Power” or “The Humpty Dance” as my car tone. Maybe Beyonce’s Put a Ring (tone) On It?
Or, if I had a hybrid, and was a smug NPR listener, I’d just crank up All Things Considered, with enough bass to rattle the windows. That’ll do it.
Of all the things that could turn me into a murderer. Do you really what to give this sort of functionality to the kind of ass-clown that buys trucknutz?
Sweet. For my first hybrid car my cartone is gonna be a Downfall/Untergang mashup. Look out motherfuckers, HERE COMES HITLER!
[re=434332]Terry[/re]:
trucks with Confederate flags in the window playing Proud to Be an American
Students, there is a logical fallacy in this statement. Can anyone tell me what it is?
Other people’s annoying cell phones are bad enough – and this guy wants to make it louder and all over the streets? No. I can just imagine all the teenage girls blaring the latest Disney pop crap down the street. [re=434332]Terry[/re]: Though I wouldn’t worry about the rednecks; none of them would be caught dead driving a hybrid. Same for most sports fanatics. The hippies, though, would be a problem.
If you live near a highway would you prefer the soothing white noise of cars constantly zooming by or a cacophony of car tones sounding like a high school locker area between classes at 100 decibels?
Bruce Barry was a workin’ man
He used to load that Econoline
I think I will use a loop of sputtering Speed Buggy. ROOMAZOOMZOOM!
so now peds will get hit while checking to see if it’s their phone that’s ringing.
60 Million cars all playing Born to Be Wild is my idea of Hell.
Whoever owns the rights to Electric Boogaloo is going to become very wealthy indeed.
Hey, don’t forget the deaf people. Along with the digitally-enhanced vroom, there should be some sort of flashing lights going at all times, too. Or hell, just make everybody drive a freaking ice cream truck, and we can all have that Casio version of “Pop Goes the Weasel” running through our heads all the time. What could possibly go wrong?
Can my “Car-tone” be a loop of Michael Steele saying “In the Hizzy”?
And when my wife tries to paralell park, can it play “Yakety Sax?”
[re=434330]user-of-owls[/re]: Heh.
But how are we going to idenitify the pedophiles, if everyone’s vehicles play music?
We might as well get rid of all the hybrids anyway. The Saudis are going to choke off our oil supply if we start buying less:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/14/business/energy-environment/14oil.html?_r=1
I can already sadly foresee that this will become yet another reason for me to stop watching The Simpsons.
I’m going for the “giant sucking sound” that is America, down the sewer. Too harsh?
Are Americans so dumb they can’t just look both ways before heading into the street?
Yes.
Dukes of Hazard theme for my civic hybrid baby!
I think we need them all to make a clopclopclop sound like a horse and buggy. Then maybe they can add scent to the exhaust, and the streets can smell like old London.
This is a no brainer, the NHTA should MANDATE that hybrids all emit a loud 60 hz buzz. The buzz should increase slightly in pitch and volume with greater speed. A loud chirping, similar to an alarm clock should sound when the vehicle is set to reverse.
As an additional safety/warning device, Hybrids should also contain a poweful, built in Van de Graf generator to make the pedestrians hair rise.
I’m buying stock in I-Fart NOW.
[re=434335]Snarkalicious[/re]: In fairness, I think the kind of ass-clown that buys a Prius is very different from the kind of ass-clown that buys trucknutz. Except, perhaps, ironically.
“(Don’t Fear) The Reaper,” man!! Now with added cowbell.
Anybody know if the “Magic Flute” Overture is available as a car-tone? Prius owners love them some Mozart. Crank dat shit up, baby!
Neighbors and dogs and cats and beasts in the forest are always sneaking up on me. Now I gotta worry about cars too.
[re=434343]JMP[/re]: I’m going with Jefferson Airplane, alternating with Little Douch Coup.
Won’t SOMEBODY think of the STUPID CHILDREN?!
Just like Stuka dive bombers
…pedestrians, children and others…
Others?? Armadillos? Possum? Fucking ‘Safety Experts’?
[re=434347]Sweet Baby Cheeses[/re]: Any Mel Blanc auto sound from Speed Buggy to Jack Benny’s Maxwell is fine by me.
[re=434371]user-of-owls[/re]: blacks?
[re=434341]user-of-owls[/re]: Is it cause the truck is a Datsun?
Is it not obvious. Ice cream truck jingles for everyone. That will solve the children in the street issue, toot sweet!
MC Steele is now the “cow on the tracks” of health care reform!
http://tpmlivewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/10/steele-on-bipartisanship-can-we-have-a-rodney-king-moment.php
This should be fun to watch.
[re=434360]Doglessliberal[/re]: [re=434364]Formerly Preferred[/re]: [re=434361]Johnny Zhivago[/re]:
So many boxes to check on the options list when ordering my new
PriusChevy Volt!Wookie beat me to the ice cream truck idea, but I still say its the fast path to childless streets.
Mine will sound like panda sex.
This is just like when they made a rule that digital cameras hadda have some kinda ‘click’ noise to indicate a pic had been snapped. Perverts everywhere were up in arms, I guess.
My “hybrid soundtrack” would be All men play on 10 by Manowar.
Bob Seger tones are grounds for a few home-run swings of a bat onto the offending Prius.
[re=434371]user-of-owls[/re]: paraplegics.
[re=434341]user-of-owls[/re]: Confederacy…American…
anywho… [re=434332]Terry[/re]: Don’t they do this already…with the radio??
I have seen the future and it’s a very bad movie.
http://www.badmovies.org/movies/deathrace2k/
[re=434333]DangerousLiberal[/re]: The guitar intro to Sweet Child o’ Mine by Guns and Roses. THAT would be AWESOME!
I want the little cardboard tube they put on the German Stuka bombers, because I’m a Democrat golfer so ipso facto, a Nazi.
[re=434384]Servo[/re]: Seconded!
[re=434341]user-of-owls[/re]: The Confederate Flags are a great band, what are you talking about?
I know it’s horrible to think about, but that is why sleighs had bells, they make no noise.
The Benney Hill theme song would be annoying, and fun!
Prius: The Silent Killer.
I thought it was the driver’s responsibility to avoid pedestrians. And has any body ever heard of a horn.
Now I have this overwhelming urge to replace the diesel engine in my truck with a hybrid motor, and add a diesel engine cartone.
Mine would play “Oh Yeah” by Yello.
Make me your nazi car-noise czar, and I will decree that all cars shall make the sound of the vehicles in The Jetsons.
More useless mandates demanded by insurance companies. Wait until you see the future of headrests thanks to expensive whiplash claims.
La Cucaracha, obviously.
Either that or mandate LRAD sonic weaponry.
A continuous audio loop of: “‘Scuse me! Pardon me! Lady with a baby! Coming through! Lady with a baby!”
Oh, please, as if kids go outside anymore!
There’s almost never a good ending for a cow on the tracks…
Why don’t they just get rid of mufflers? Mufflers are so wimpy.
Tapeloop of Pacino-isms should do it.
I do research in India, where custom car horns are everywhere and you can’t walk down the street without hearing a tone-deaf pneumatic-powered version of the theme song from the latest bad action movie. They’re entertaining most of the time, actually, but every once in a while two or more cars with horns tuned differently will honk at once and you’ll swear the gates of hell are opening.
Now imagine this is a constant noise rather than a horn, and that there are dozens of them at once. Mmm! I think deafness is preferable.
Also, John Cage is probably wetting himself over the idea of recording this right now.
Dibs on the old Batman theme!
[re=434358]magic titty[/re]: darwinian selection can take care of those. and whatever the hell happened to horns and rolling down the window? you know, “beep-beep, get the fuck outta the way, you moron!” it made america great.
[re=434378]Way Cool Larry[/re]: [re=434432]Johnny Zhivago[/re]: Oh heavens, this has layers of hilarity that cry out for a resurrection post:
http://wonkette.com/407744/nyt-headlines-used-to-be-uh-livelier
I implore you, if you read only one thing related to Michael Steele as a cow on the tracks, you MUST read this earlier Wonkette post.
[re=434330]user-of-owls[/re]: Ha!
But seriously folks, I’ve driven a hybrid, and the fucking thing was so quiet I had a hard time figuring out if it was on or not. These mutant mute vehicles will destroy us all.
[re=434446]Min[/re]: Wicked Witch theme from the Wizard of Oz pour moi! That, or anything by Abba.
I was not aware that running folks over at blazing speeds of 20-30 miles per hour was an issue.
I love that my hybrid makes it easier for me to smush unsuspecting pedestrians. Less sporting, perhaps, but definitely more effective.
The Macarena = apocalyptic road rage
How did Fred Flintstone solve this problem?
There’s actually a very good reason why this sort of thing won’t develop, and it’s a safety one. In addition to being the most obnoxious thing in history, car tones could drown out the sounds of various emergency vehicle sirens. The government should ban car tones, for being dumb, and they have a fantastic excuse to do so.
I hope that NHTSA mandates a sound something like Speed Buggy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjveJyqI6yM
[re=434341]user-of-owls[/re]: They already do that?
[re=434371]user-of-owls[/re]: Trig?
[re=434364]Formerly Preferred[/re]: Sorry to be a dick, but I find that to be amazingly short-sighted.
Oh my ****. As I read aout this I felt the world suddenly fall apart.
Seriously? How about finding an alternative solution to this annoying problem- by googling “Bub Rubb and Lil Sis”.
Hook it up to your damned iPod, obvs. Slim Whitman, ‘Indian Love Call’ for the win! Against Martians, anyway.
“Always Look On The Bright Side of Life”
(with the verse that contains “Just Before You Draw Your Terminal Breath”).
“The whistles go woo-wooo!”
They should blast a 113 Hz sound for three seconds, and then blast a 136 Hz for another three seconds, a la the Tripods in Steven Spielberg’s War of the Worlds.
Mine will go “STOP RIGHT THERE!” Thump.
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