Seems to me that you are not looking both ways before crossing the street.

Sounds to me like you never make a mistake. And of course i did look, thats why I didnt get run over! But we learn cues from patterns and the silent fast moving scooter is a new pattern. If this happened to you you’d understand instead of being snarky. And you probably dimly think I am against silent electric vehicles which I am not.

The other day this almost happened to me on a sidewalk in NYC. Delivery people on silent scooters do drive on sidewalks.

Sounds like the drivers aren't.

Your safety, especially avoiding being hit, effectively rests on mostly your own shoulders. That's why drivers learn defensive driving which teaches them they can get railed even when they have the right of way.

"I only look up from my phone when I hear an engine, so they should be stopping for me!" and the fact that the driver shares some of the blame isn't much of a consolation once you're laying in a hospital bed.

I also think it's a terrible justification for noise pollution.

That said, I'd be totally down for a city center that was just silent scooters, and where accidents got your scooter license revoked for 6mos no questions asked. ;)

I'm an avid electric moped rider in Vienna, a moderately sized European city, and in my first few weeks of ridership, it was very clear that people just do not look if they don't first have an audio cue .. and indeed, I almost hit a number of people because they didn't hear me. Electric mopeds are smooth and near-silent - especially in the rush of a big city.

I've had days where all I can think of, is how to add sound to my moped in cool ways. #1 idea is to put a kind of buzzer/whistle on my helmet .. thought of the whole 'speed-based synthesiser app' that makes the "drrroooooot" sound (its a nonsense idea), but in the end, a plain old bell seems to be the most effective measure yet, in the effort to continue to enjoy the electric ride ..

I could imagine an industry standard 'speed synthesiser', though, but the jingle-bell is cute too, and cheaper ...

Not sure about other countries, but in Germany at least an AVAS (acoustic vehicle alerting system) must be installed in new electric cars and hybrids. My Zoe sounds like a spaceship while under 30 kph, the sound becoming quieter the faster you go, as from about 20 kph the sound of the tires would be louder than an engine anyway. Could be used for mopeds too.

I think that is a good idea. It doesn't even need to be as loud as an engine and shouldn't be permanently on. Not sure what the sound could be without becoming a nuisance but im sure someone will come up with a good solution for this.

License movement noises from the Flinstones or Jetsons.