Situational awareness is important whether you're a vehicle operator or a pedestrian.
Even something as simple as easily telling if a horn is being sounded by a vehicle in motion or a vehicle that's stopped can go a long ways. Such a system...
- allows pedestrians to pass by without getting spooked by a hair-trigger proximity car alarm going off,
- gives other drivers a heads up that they don't have to waste their time gauging the speed of the chirping vehicle.
In both cases, a chirp still means "Hey!", it just can't mean "Hey! you might be about to get hit by 2 tonnes of steel".-- FlyingToaster, Sep 11 2012 Sounds like a rant to me (beep!)-- normzone, Sep 12 2012 I've been beeped at by driverless cars which I was 7-8 feet away from. I don't need an "omg look out !!!" noise coming from a parked car which is no danger to me or vice versa.
They cite people for pulling fire alarms when there's no fire, making certain kinds of prank phone calls and threatening somebody whether it's meant seriously or not.
How is this different ?
The same goes for a remote door locking.
While it might be considered onerous to have a different sound for each type of beep ("look out", "after you", "wake up, idiot, the light's green") for the driver to use while operating the vehicle, there's zero excuse to use the sound that means "your immediate attention is required" to indicate coming within 10 feet of the vehicle, especially since parked close together with other cars and people walking around it is a normal state of affairs.
[title changed to reflect the difference between a car complaining because somebody's actually trying to jimmy the door ,and sounding off from somebody walking past]-- FlyingToaster, Sep 12 2012 I would say its not really a halfbakery idea to suggest something that already exists be controlled.-- rcarty, Sep 12 2012 I completely agree. Luckly my car doesn't normally honk when I lock the door, but if I accidently hit the button twice it does :(
That being said, a lot of cars do give a nice chirp when the door is locked and have an appropriately differnt alarm sound, so just making a law mandating it is grounds for [m-f-d] [edit: m-f-d removed based on idea modified to not be a legal mandate].
How about if you figure out some way to design a horn/chirper combination device that is cheaper to manufacture than current horns, but not cheaper still if they leave off the chirper. Then this will get implemented without a law.-- scad mientist, Sep 12 2012 hmm.... technically I can stand my ground: while advocacy, it's not a widely discussed subject; neither is a rant by itself grounds for m-f-d.
However I'll admit that, as written, it's sorta lazy.
Fine, the rewrite is going to be "disambiguate the horn sound between a vehicle that is stopped and a vehicle in motion", an all round positive idea with the one not-small problem of having to do it in such a way that you can tell when *any* car is stopped or in motion, not just one brand/model....
ramble ramble ramble, got it.
I expect pastry from the three of you in a couple minutes.
[working] done... still pretty crudely written, but the idea's now clearly an idea.-- FlyingToaster, Sep 12 2012 Technically defined, still a rant, but I'm not protesting, merely commenting. Widely known to annoy people, etc, etc...-- normzone, Sep 12 2012 Yes, well, it's much less ranty now. I like to pride myself on writing positively, ie: "this idea does this" rather than "this idea avoids that"... maybe after a few hours shuteye....-- FlyingToaster, Sep 12 2012 Personally I'd get far more pleasure from the Ritt der Walküren option.-- Phrontistery, Sep 12 2012 // pedestrian //
Sp. "victim", "target"-- 8th of 7, Sep 12 2012 Can I suggest vehicle emits an unmistakably rip roaring fart, accompanied by revolting smell.... Guaranteed to cause people to move away smartly in embarrassment.-- Lesser Spotted Kiwi, Sep 12 2012 The kittens who graciously allow me to share their abode spend all day trilling, that's the sort of sound that would work.-- Phrontistery, Sep 14 2012 random, halfbakery