The Vehicle was Quiet...Too Quiet

Imagine you’re a child somewhere in the 5-10 age bracket. Someone hands you a steering wheel. Maybe it’s attached to a parked car, or not attached to anything. Whatever.

What is the first sound that comes out of your hypothetical child mouth?

Vrooom…Vroooom….Vroooooooom!

If you were anything like me, the innocent vrooming is quickly succeeded by the sounds of carnage and horror: Screeeeeech! Bang! Kabaaaaam! And, sometimes: Oh, the humanity! My whole family was in that car! (And people wonder why, as an adult, I don’t have a driver’s license! Mystery solved.)

The next generation of kids/driver-imitators may have to skip the vrooms, but keep the carnage. That’s because electric cars, the proposed future of our transportation system, run silently.

Detractors are concerned that noiseless electric cars are a safety hazard for the blind and visually impaired who will undoubtedly have difficulty navigating intersections without the usual aural cues. Obviously, people who possess the ability to see, but lack the brains to listen, aren’t immune to injuries either.

Of course, some people can’t hardly wait for the reduction in sound pollution promised by e-cars. Others are suggesting ways to, um, ‘artificially enhance’ their vrooming capacity. These innovators, for example, put speakers behind the wheels that play a loop of engine sounds coordinated to the cars movements. To my ears, the recording sounds like a garbage disposer. (Why engine sounds, anyway? How about Pop-Goes-the-Weasel? But I guess that would get confusing if you refuse to sell ice cream out of your car.)

Meanwhile, vroom could go the way of clip-clop clip-clop.

Maybe parents should teach their kids to make ambulance noises instead.

Weee onngg weee onngg!