[gui-talk] Fwd: Article: Hybrids too quiet for blind

[Steve Pattison]

>From: John Rae thepenguin at rogers.com
>To: AEBC aebc at blindcanadians.ca
>
>Hybrids too quiet for blind pedestrians; Group wants car makers to build in
>inoffensive noise for safety
>
>Helen Henderson
>The Toronto Star, July 16, 2007
>
>A concerned group of pedestrians is ramping up efforts to get car makers to
>build low noise into their hybrid models to increase safety.
>
>Hybrids, which alternate between electric and gasoline power, are so quiet
>in electric mode that "they pose a new hazard to people who are blind or
>hard of hearing," says John Rae, president the Alliance for Equality of
>Blind Canadians. He urges manufacturers to act "before individuals are
>killed because they could not hear an oncoming quiet hybrid."
>
>With Toronto Mayor David Miller promoting hybrids as part of plans to keep
>the city green, concerns are growing. Rae and others stress they are all in
>favour of cutting harmful emissions by using hybrids. They also agree with
>efforts to reduce noise pollution.
>
>"We're talking about adding a sound that's inoffensive but useful," says
>Deborah Kent Stein, head of the auto and pedestrian safety committee at the
>Baltimore-based National Federation of the Blind, which runs a website on
>the subject quietcars.nfb.org.
>
>Stein says her group is working with safety advocates for pedestrians and
>cyclists on solutions to the quiet car problem. Options discussed include
>using sound from the radiator fan or building something into the axle that
>would emit sound as the wheels rotate.
>
>"The engineering is not hard but the politics is," she says, citing car
>makers' emphasis on silence as one of the main selling points of hybrids.
>
>Jack Pokrzywa, manager of ground vehicle standards at the international
>division of the Society of Automobile Engineers, says a "committee of
>automotive engineers will be looking into it." But the group is still "at
>the very beginning" of the data collection and assessment process, he adds.
>
>Hybrid models already on the market include: Lexus, Honda Civic and Accord,
>Toyota Prius, Camry and Highlander, and Ford Escape.
>
>Spokespeople for major auto makers say there are no plans to introduce
>sound.
>
>As a spokesperson for Toyota Canada puts it: "We have to balance the needs
>of sight-impaired people and pedestrians with other societal concerns like
>noise pollution."
>
>Stein, who is blind and prides herself on being attuned to sound, says she
>was shocked to find she couldn't hear hybrids. While she listened from the
>sidewalk on a quiet side street, she heard a friend climb into his Toyota
>Prius and slam the door. After that, she heard nothing as her friend drove
>to the end of the block, backed up and drove away again.
>
>"I realized I could easily step straight into the path of an oncoming Prius
>with no hint of peril," she says.
>
>Public misconceptions about pedestrians who are blind make things more
>difficult, say members of the alliance. As one contributor to the website
>blindcanadians.ca
>puts it:
>
>"Contrary to popular belief, our guide dogs do not read the traffic lights
>for us. When I reach a lighted intersection, I listen for the sound of
>traffic flow. ... If the intersection were full of quiet cars, I could not
>read the traffic and would not know when to give my dog the 'forward'
>command."

Regards Steve
Email:  srp at internode.on.net
Skype:  steve1963
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