Prius – Good for sneaking up on people
National Highway Safety Administration Report
Read the Full NHS Report
For the past year the National Highway Traffic Administration (NHTSA) studied the impact of hybrid and electric vehicles onpedestrians with visual impairments. Earlier this week (April 2010) NHTSA released phase I of a study entitled Quieter Cars and the Safety Of Blind Pedestrians.
NHTSA’s findings confirmed that Hybrid and electric vehicles traveling at low speeds are extremely difficult to identify due to the lack of sound emission. The NHTSA report said, “This research provides information to better understand the safety risk to blind (and I would add sighted) pedestrians associated with the acoustic profiles of quieter cars in various maneuvers and ambient sound conditions.”
ACB along with NFB, Representative Towns’s office, and the Society of Automotive Engineers met with NHTSA about the study and its progress 5 times over the last 12 months. Phase II of the study is expected to begin later this summer and is expected to focus on sound emission standards.
The quiet car is a menace to pedestrians - I have posted articles from the NYTimes and LA Times about the issue with quiet cars and pedestrians. I included an article about the bill introduced by U.S. Senators John Kerry (D-MA) and Arlen Specter (R-PA) to protect pedestrians who are blind from the continued production and sale of quiet cars.
Think – walking pedestrians use a multi-sensory approach to avoiding cars- seeing, hearing, object perception.
Apply – When you are in the parking lot – if you don’t hear a car you are not on guard. No one likes to be surprised by a moving car.
1. LA Times
By Martin Zimmerman Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
March 29, 2008
Blind pedestrians may not hear hybrid cars
CBS2 KCal news Story on Trouble Hearing Hybrids
2. The New York Times
By JIM MOTAVALLI
October 13, 2009
In his article, Motavalli (2009) included all pedestrians in the risk posed by quiet cars.
Hybrid Cars May Include Fake Vroom for Safety
Jeremy Korzeniewski (RSS feed) on Apr 23rd 2009 at 2:33PM
Pedestrian Safety Enhancement Act introduced to protect the blind from quiet cars
Exerpt from the article, “According to the newly introduced Pedestrian Safety Enhancement Act of 2009, which was just introduced by U.S. Senators John Kerry (D-MA) and Arlen Specter (R-PA), “New vehicles that employ hybrid or electric engine technology can be silent, rendering them extremely dangerous in situations where vehicles and pedestrians come into proximity with each other.”
We should all support the bill before the two houses that “direct the Secretary of Transportation to study and establish a motor vehicle safety standard that provides for a means of alerting blind and other pedestrians of motor vehicle operation.”
I support this bill. Let’s make it a LAW!