What is the proper term for the sound of one vehicle passing another?

Question

I'm trying to describe the sound you hear when a vehicle passes another on the highway, something like "whoosh," and on the racetrack like "vroom."

I feel like a little sheepish asking, but I need to do a presentation for a client and his minions, and I don't want to stammer through it.

Right now I'm describing it as, "you know that sound that one car makes when it passes another car?"

Thanks for your help.

Answer 1

When the pitch is all high coming towards you and then lower once it passes?

The sound is called

EEEEEeeeeeeeee.....rrrrrmmmmmm

No just kidding,

it's Doppler shift.
Read about it in the wiki if you want.

Answer 2

All this doppler talk doesn't seem to apply to the specifics of the question. When one car passes another, either you're in one of the cars, in which case the speed difference usually is too small for a significant doppler pitch change, or you're a bystander, in which case the fact of it being two cars doesn't significantly change the doppler sound (except you get two eeyows instead of one).
I'd say the main effect I hear as a bystander is two sets of tire noise, usually far louder than engine noise. And as a driver, I usually hear the other guy's tires more than mine! I'd call those noises whines. Sometimes the other car's exhaust can sound like a sputter (probably a miss) or a loud hiss (restriction or leak somewhere in the exhaust system) or an agressive roar (excessive testosterone).
On the racetrack, though, you get mostly engine noise, really loud, and since the cars are often highly similar in engine revs and gear ratios you can often hear beats between two slightly different exhaust notes. This I'd call (deafening) screams with occasional wah-wah effects.

Answer 3

The effect where the car's engine sounds higher pitched as it is approaching and lower pitch as it passes by is caused by the doppler effect. I've never heard a name for the sound itself that wasn't a word like "zoom" etc, though.

The doppler effect is caused by the fact that the moving sound source is emitting waves at some frequency. The motion causes the waves of sound to be closer together than they normally would. Basically, the car is chasing the soundwaves, so there's less space between the waves than there should be. To the stationary observer, this sounds like the sound is higher pitched.

As the car goes away from you, the speed of the car is adding to the distance between the waves because they're being emitted further apart from each other than they would be if it were standing still. This makes the sound have a lower frequency.

Light does this too - out in deep space, objects moving away from us are redshifted; their color appears more reddish than it really is. Objects moving closer to us are blueshifted.

Answer 4

The "whoosh" you hear is expansion and compression waves caused by turbulent airflow around the vehicle, as well as the sound caused by the tires continuously smacking the pavement. The pitch changes when the vehicle is coming and going, due to the Doppler shift.

As for a name, I don't think you're going to find anything beyond onomatopoeia.

Answer 5

If you're really afraid of saying the word, "whoosh", then say "The sibilant sound of one car passing another car."

Answer 6

this is called the doppler effect. look it up in your physics book

Answer 7

When a truck full of baking soda collides with a truck full of vinegar the sound it makes is (((((DOUCHE))))).