Blind people win with the Gen4...

I tend to agree with you; the volume is very low. I was driving yesterday on a small residential road, parked cars on the left side and two women walking rather slowly while chatting in the right lane. Side walk was empty. I was perhaps 15 - 20 feet in back of them for about 100 feet. Neither showed any indication they heard the car behind them.

 

Sounds like Toyota's in a balancing act, between legislation and irate owners.

 

For the US Gen 4 owners, I watched a review on YouTube by a Jetflash1000 (I think). Anyway the reviewer found in the USA, he could not hear the sound while driving his Prius, but recorded the sound he drove slowly past his camera. Obviously, this may not apply to other regions and will need verification from several owners. Perhaps Bob can come back on this one...

 

This should work! I ordered one for my Prius…

 

No one ever hears my 2017 Four. Even if I follow them for a block in the parking lot. It seems to me that at least half of the public have lost half of their hearing, which tends to go downhill with age anyway. Little kids don't know how to listen, and the elderly can't. And with most walking folks wearing earbuds or earphones, how in crap can they hear anything going on around them. Sheesh! And I think that many folks (especially those on their cells) don't care to listen. I've learned to go VERY SLOWLY around pedestrians everywhere. And to assume that they do not hear my car. It does not look good for future generations having any hearing left by age forty.

 

I was under the impression that you had a slow speed noise generator standard fitted to you Prii in USA. Wish we had the option here in UK for the same reasons you cited. Sound the horn and is likely to to generate vicious retaliation from either fear or anger or both!

 

My pedestrian warning is still extremely quiet. Sounds like steam escaping? And barely audible. Useless. I installed a new horn, now my car horn sounds like an old Buick. A couple quick taps gets the attention of people. (Or gets me shot.)

 

I really detest noisy vehicles, especially blowing horns. (But do it LOUDLY when those big MF SUV's that own the road pull out of a parking space in front of me without so much as a glance.) Staying with the kids and their newborn in Cali most of this summer, and they practically live in the middle of a busy intersection in a residential neighborhood. Car noise never ends, and Caltrain two blocks away keeps up a steady cacophony of bleaping train horns. Wish all vehicles and trains were electric! So I continue to just crawl through parking lots and around pedestrians praying for the best. (Tests have shown that loud traffic noises are not good for children or human beings for that matter.)

 

iirc, the gen 4 volume is adjustable.

 

You'd think we'd all have it fitted, but UK.... Nope!

 

I want my pedestrian alert to sound like Giant Ants!

 

I still go with this sound:

 

When all the guys were changing their horns, I did the same. My Prius sounds exactly like these Ford horns.

 

...I wonder if it's there but disabled by default? Could always check with a Techstream, it's configurable with that.

 

Good idea. I guess I'm not savvy enough to warrant buying a Techstream. Then again, it's possible I'm too lazy to do anything about it. There was one guy on here some time ago when we were all debating the feeble Toyota horn who designed a new one that made a sharp "bip! bip!" with a short press. When you held it longer, it went bip,bip beeeeeep! Now that was cool .