General Question

elbanditoroso's avatar

Should the beep-beep alert of a truck that is backing up increase in speed based on the speed the vehicle is going?

Asked by elbanditoroso (33185points) September 9th, 2016

A garbage truck was backing down my street today to get to the people at the end of the cul-de-sac. Normally when they back the truck down, the reverse gear beeper sound is heard, at a normal cadence (beep-beep <wait 1 sec> beep-beep <wait 1 sec> and so on).

But sometimes the garbage truck is going slowly – maybe 1–2 mph, and sometimes more quickly on the straightaway (maybe 5 mph),

Should the beeps be faster as an indicator of the reverse speed being faster?

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5 Answers

funkdaddy's avatar

Seems like added complication without any real benefit.

The range of backup speeds is pretty small, the frequency of beeps is pretty low, the total time backing up is pretty short. So we’re talking about maybe one or two extra beeps that won’t even be noticed 95% of the time.

What would anyone actually do differently with a faster beep?

“Here comes the garbage truck… we should move.”
“Nah… that beep seems pretty slow, I don’t think it means business.”

~

janbb's avatar

My car beeps when I am close to hitting something and beeps faster when I get closer to it so the technology is there – although that is linked to proximity rather than speed. It doesn’t seem like it would be hard to implement.

SQUEEKY2's avatar

Going to agree with @funkdaddy on this one.
I don’t think it would make any difference to people.
@janbb your car is alerting you not the general public of danger,you are right the technology is there but for the general public I do not think it would make any difference .

Strauss's avatar

The beep-beep-beep is a relatively recent (last 40 years or so) innovation to imitate the sound of a bell. Large trucks, such as dump trucks and concrete mixer trucks used to have a mechanical bell sound, produced by a mechanism on the rear wheel or axle. This would clang and sound like a warning bell when they were backing up.

—-The backup noise reminds me of a “Yo momma” joke, but I won’t repeat it here.—

Dutchess_III's avatar

I know I look around when I hear it. I don’t think the speed would cause me to react differently.

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