Quiet Hybrid Cars A Threat To Blind People

AP:

Gas-electric hybrid vehicles, the status symbol for the environmentally conscientious, are coming under attack from a constituency that doesn't drive: the blind.

Because hybrids make virtually no noise at slower speeds when they run solely on electric power, blind people say they pose a hazard to those who rely on their ears to determine whether it's safe to cross the street or walk through a parking lot.

"I'm used to being able to get sound cues from my environment and negotiate accordingly. I hadn't imagined there was anything I really wouldn't be able to hear," said Deborah Kent Stein, chairwoman of the National Federation of the Blind's Committee on Automotive and Pedestrian Safety. "We did a test, and I discovered, to my great dismay, that I couldn't hear it."

Read the whole story: AP

Comments

[kasa5400]

For those whining they can't hear hybrid, there is an easy solution for those who are blind.

GET A DOG!

A trained Service Dog is apparently smarter than the whiners. A Service Dog looks before moving into traffic - and has hearing that far, far, far more acute than humans.

[totalliberal]

My bad "quiet".

[totalliberal]

I live in the city. I want quite. To the blind, learn to live with the peace and quit and I'll learn to drive more carefully.
As to the goof with dear whistles on the car. Are you stupid or just have no imagination. Can you conceive thousands of people driving around in a city with such devices on.

[dadw5boys]

Put those little DEER SIRENS on the fenders hit deers and blind people too.

[SouthJerseySteve]

Why are blind people driving hybrids in the first place?

[askmeificare]

No matter what kind "green" technology is produced, the environmentalists will poo-poo the idea.

Their goal is not to be dependent from foreign oil, but to destroy capitalism.

[realitytrumpsbull]

They're more of a threat to OPEC than they are to blind people, you can put a little bell or a buzzer or something on it...

[jaramilr]

You don't have to be blind or on a cellphone to be in danger. What about kids playing near or in the street, bicyclists, etc. This last weekend I almost got hit by my friend's prius in a parking lot when he was parking next to me and I was helping my toddler get her shoes on. I didn't know he was there and I turned around and walked in front of him. Luckily he was going slow and stopped.

Maybe in the future cars could detect if someone is near and only then make a noticeable and distinctive noise that is not annoying and not too loud. Or maybe I've just been watching reruns of the Jetson's too much lately.

[kasa5400]

Operative phrase is " I turned around and walked in front of him"

Didn't your mother tell you to look before you crossed the road?

Somehow your incredible stupidity of not lookng before walking into places where cars move does not justify gadgets to add to the noise pollution to protect idiots.

In fact, leave the car silent and there will be thinning of the crowd to eliminate the stupid.

[totalliberal]

["Didn't your mother tell you to "look" before you crossed the road?"]

He's blind, moron.

[bluesnot]

Maybe the hybrids could play music like the icecream truck does...

[DocSarvis]

I vote for a recording of a 1966 Volkswagen Beetle.

[JScott]

Hmmm wonder if this a a planted story for the autocompanies that don't wanna pursue gree technologies.

And oh please, I think ya find this on snopes.com for one thing when you are blind your other senses compensate, so hearing is sharpened and for one thing hybrids are not all that quiet and then there's still tire noise on the road surface, I think it's really folks not listening or paying attention and I wonder if it was blind folks yakking away on a cellphone, of course they wouldn't hear.

[HotheadPaisen]

Yes, this is from big oil just the same as when Diebold helped the blind "see" that their machines (you know, the ones with out any verifiable paer trails) were the only ones that didn't take away their rights.

[sailmaker]

Put whistles on the cars like people do in deer country. End of problem.

[peterpancreas]

This just in: quiet world a threat to blind people.

SHUT UP!

[whomung]

Shhhh... Mums the word.....