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Comment by toomuchtodo | Hacker News Reader

Unpopular opinion: Lifted trucks should be illegal.

In cities lifted trucks and motorcycles and cars without sufficient muffling should be illegal. Engineers have spent so much time and money trying to solve problems around noise, pollution and safety so that we can operate internal combustion engine vehicles in crowded cities without ruining each others lives. Then someone can just lift their truck and take the muffler off for vanity reasons? Seems insane

Those _are_ illegal already. It's just that in many places the police don't actively enforce the laws because they have more important work to do.

Not disagreeing with your point, but a what is the more important work they’re supposedly working on? In SF cops aren’t enforcing traffic laws, drug laws, or really even patrolling so what are cops actually spending their time on?

Presumably, violent and property crimes.

I think the only solution for this is to phase out ICE vehicles entirely. No matter how quiet they are when they leave the factory, there is always some idiot who's gonna modify the exhaust because he thinks that making extra loud noises makes him cool.

And some companies that will modify the non-ICE cars to make more noise:

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1180877114226008064

Though, the first time I hear a Tesla making the coconut noise from Monty Python I will no doubt laugh. The second time? Yeah, it'll get old fast.

NHTSA recently updated the rules for vehicle pedestrian warning sounds, and now allows user-selectable sounds. Previously these were prohibited, so vehicles could only have one fixed sound.

I'm not sure that "coconut noises" would be allowed, however, as the rules require continuous tones (modulated according to speed and acceleration) that must be recognisable as an engine noise.

Perhaps the coconut noise will be a manually-activated alert/horn feature rather than the mandatory pedestrian warning sound.

Coconut noise mp3 from Monty Python is already being deployed in Tesla software based on recent decompiling.

My 2018 Honda Clarity makes a really cheesy synthetic new-age sounding "hum" noise at low speed. I wish Honda would put out a software update to make the noise user-selectable.

The intro to "The Final Countdown" in a continuous loop would be swell.

They are in Australia! (Where the ANCAP is from).

Or rather, lifts beyond a few inches require special certification. Same goes for larger tires and after market bullbars.

Heck in Australia I don't think it's even legal to have tyres that come outside the width of the mud guards.

Of course it isn't, that's seriously dangerous.

What is ANCAP? I only know this term as meaning anarcho-capitalism.

Australasian New Car Assessment Program https://www.ancap.com.au/

What Australia are you living in?

Crazy bright LED headlights at eye level of other vehicles need to be illegal too.

They are in many parts of the world!

Even more Unpopular Opinion: pedestrians and non-motorized traffic should be illegal on road ways

Yes what we need is a law so extreme that it even prohibits us to walk accross the parking lot to the store.

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