[nfb-talk] Blind people: Hybrid Cars Pose Hazard

[Wm. Ritchhart]

I must say that Marc actually showed some whit for once.  Personally, I
would like to put all the environmentalists wacko's like the one quoted
into a city the size of New York, populate it with a couple hundred
thousand hybrids and perm a-glue sleep shades over their eyes.  Perhaps
then they would see our point.


I have two experiences in the past two years.  One was on a quiet
residential street, early on a Saturday morning.  I was starting into
the street when the car was on me.  I did not hear it until it was
half-way past me.  Had there been any cars around with internal
combustion engines, I would have been hit.  The other was at a bus stop.
Again I never heard the car until it was nearly past.  
 


William
 

-----Original Message-----
From: nfb-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nfb-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org]
On Behalf Of Bill Reif
Sent: Wednesday, October 03, 2007 8:57 PM
To: il-talk at nfbnet.org; nfb-talk at nfbnet.org
Subject: [nfb-talk] Blind people: Hybrid Cars Pose Hazard

This AP story came out today.

Bill

Blind people: Hybrid cars pose hazard
By BEN NUCKOLS, Associated Press Writer
Wed Oct 3, 6:47 AM ET
BALTIMORE - 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."
The tests - admittedly unscientific - involved people standing in
parking 
lots or
on sidewalks who were asked to signal when they heard several different 
hybrid models
drive by.
"People were making comments like, 'When are they going to start the
test?' 
And it
would turn out that the vehicle had already done two or three laps
around 
the parking
lot," Stein said.
As gas prices continue to rise - along with concern about harmful 
emissions - hybrid
cars are increasing in popularity. New
hybrid vehicle registrations
 grew more than 49 percent nationwide in the first seven months of 2007 
compared
with the same period in 2006, according to R.L. Polk & Co., an
automotive 
research
firm.
Toyota Motor Corp
. has sold nearly 460,000 of the most popular hybrid model, the Prius,
since 
it hit
the market in 2000, according to the company, which pegs total hybrid
sales 
at just
over 900,000.
Officials with the Baltimore
-based National Federation of the Blind are quick to point out that
they're 
not advocating
a return to gas guzzlers. They'd just like the fuel-efficient hybrids to

make some
noise.
NFB President Marc Maurer said he received an e-mail from an 
environmentalist who
suggested that the members of his group should be the first to drown
when 
sea levels
rise from global warming.
"I don't want to pick that way of going, but I don't want to get run
over by 
a quiet
car, either," Maurer said.
The NFB - the leading advocacy group for 1.3 million legally blind
people in 
the
United States - made pleas to the auto industry and to federal and state

agencies,
with little concrete success so far. On Wednesday, the president of the 
NFB's Maryland
chapter planned to present written testimony asking for a minimum sound 
standard
for hybrids to be included in the state's emissions regulations.
But those regulations are crafted by the Maryland Department of the 
Environment
, which has no oversight of auto safety, said Robert Ballinger, a
spokesman 
for the
department. He said the department would work with the NFB to press the 
issue with
auto manufacturers and federal transportation officials.
Manufacturers are aware of the problem but have made no pledges yet.
Toyota 
is studying
the issue internally, said Bill Kwong, a spokesman for Toyota Motor
Sales 
USA.
"One of the many benefits of the Prius, besides excellent fuel economy
and 
low emissions,
is quiet performance. Not only does it not pollute the air, it doesn't 
create noise
pollution," Kwong said. "We are studying the issue and trying to find
that 
delicate
balance."
The Association of International Auto Manufacturers Inc., a trade group,
is 
also
studying the problem, along with a committee established by the Society
of 
Automotive
Engineers. The groups are considering "the possibility of setting a
minimum 
noise
level standard for hybrid vehicles," said Mike Camissa, the safety
director 
for the
manufacturers' association.
Officials with two separate arms of the U.S. Department of
Transportation - 
the National
Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Federal Highway 
Administration - said
they are aware of the problem but have not studied it.
While Stein said she would prefer that hybrids sound similar to
conventional 
engines,
other blind people said they'd be fine with any sound that was
inoffensive 
but easy
to detect. Both sides agree that it wouldn't be prohibitively expensive
to 
outfit
cars with an adequate noisemaking device.
"It's cheaper than an air bag or other safety devices," Kwong said. "Any

kind of
audio device is going to be relatively inexpensive."
The blind, however, will have to win over some hybrid owners as well as 
advocates
for reduced noise pollution. Some think that making hybrids louder won't

solve anything.
"To further expose millions of people to excessive noise pollution by
making 
vehicles
artificially loud is neither logical nor practical nor in the public 
interest," said
Richard Tur, founder of NoiseOFF, a group that raises awareness of noise

pollution.
Others believe that distracted pedestrians are at greater risk than
blind 
people
from quiet cars.
"The only way to function driving any car, forgetting the fact that it's
a 
Prius,
is to just be very careful and see who's around you," said George
Margolin 
of Newport
Beach, Calif., who runs a club for Prius owners with his wife. "We have
to 
be as
careful as anyone else and perhaps even more so."
Blind people are not the only ones who've had close calls. Linda Murphy,
57, 
a personal
administrative assistant from San Marcos, Calif., has 20/20 vision when
she 
wears
her glasses, but she's almost been hit twice by hybrids.
"I'm walking right in back of it and it's moving and I didn't realize it

until it
nearly touched me," Murphy said, describing the first of her scares. "I 
never realized
how dependent I was on my ears until I almost got hit."

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