The importance of audio cues for road safety

The next topic we’re tackling is road safety.

Audio cues are an essential part of road safety. When out walking, our ears help us know when and where cars are approaching from, same thing when we’re on a bike. That’s why it’s generally not recommended to walk or cycle with headphones in: you cut yourself off from important safety cues. Audio cues are also really important to drivers. That’s why all cars have a horn, why emergency vehicles have sirens, and so on. But internal car sounds matter too, such as the seatbelt warning, the door-open alert, or the beep your car might give when you’re backing into something.

The next ten posts or so will cover papers from all of these areas, ranging from e-scooter safety to in-car alerts to musical roads.

This is a topic I care quite a bit about, so I’m excited to write about it. I don’t enjoy driving. I can drive, I drove quite a bit as a teenager in the US, and I took lessons to get my British license here in the UK (which was pretty terrifying!). But I much prefer a walking-centered lifestyle. I loved this while living in Prague and Zürich, the ability to hop on trams, trains, and buses to get anywhere you like. It’s so freeing.

So I’ll have a bit of a bias as I write, leaning pro-pedestrian safety (we're so exposed out there, drive carefully around us please!).

First post in this series arriving Thursday morning 📬

Until then, drive/walk/cycle/scooter safely everyone!

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P.S. I’ve had a lot of new subscribers lately, so just a quick note to say thank you so much for subscribing!! So happy to have you here! Welcome and I hope you enjoy this next series of posts. If road safety isn’t your thing, I switch topics every ten posts or so, so stay tuned for more fun audio topics soon!