[nfbwatlk] Quiet Cars Columbian article

Thu May 31 15:18:11 CDT 2007

Well, I think the article was from the Columbian,which is the Vancouver 
paper.

Kaye
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Chris & Judy Jones" <nfbwatac at earthlink.net>
To: "NFB of Washington Talk Mailing List" <nfbwatlk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Thursday, May 31, 2007 12:10 PM
Subject: Re: [nfbwatlk] Quiet Cars Columbian article

Hi, Kaye, Noel and others,

It might not be a bad idea to send this article and others like it to the
newsroom of the respective newspapers in our areas.

Judy

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Kaye Kipp" <kkipp123 at msn.com>
To: "NFB of Washington Talk Mailing List" <nfbwatlk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2007 4:58 PM
Subject: Re: [nfbwatlk] Quiet Cars Columbian article

Thanks for posting this.

Kaye
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Nightingale, Noel" <Noel.Nightingale at ed.gov>
To: <nfbwatlk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2007 9:27 AM
Subject: [nfbwatlk] Quiet Cars Columbian article

Sorry if this has already been posted.

-----Original Message-----

-----Original Message-----
From: caps-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:caps-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of
Deborah Kent Stein
Sent: Friday, May 25, 2007 12:21 PM
To: Committee on Automobile and Pedestrian Safety
Subject: [Caps] Another Article

[This is from the Columbian of Vancouver, Washington.]

Friday, May 25, 2007
BY BRETT OPPEGAARD, Columbian staff writer

Each weekday morning, Nick Wilks crosses just one street. That's how the

17-year-old gets from his dorm room at Washington State School for the Blind
to classes at Hudson's Bay High School.

The intersection of East Reserve Street and East McLoughlin Boulevard is

quiet most of the time. But about 10:35 a.m., when Wilks is on his way back,
it's an obstacle course. Parking lots at nearby Clark College are filling.
Young
drivers on lunch break from Hudson's Bay are often whipping through that

intersection
from all directions. Wilks has almost been hit by cars there twice this
school year.

What's saved him? Hearing the uncomfortably close chugs of combustion
engines.

Yet what if cars were silent? That sounds like a futuristic dream, a
pleasing idea to those irritated by contemporary noise pollution. But it's a
frightening prospect to those, such as Wilks, who rely on sounds to survive.

Hybrid vehicles not only are emitting less toxins in the air and consuming
fuel more efficiently, but they are reducing ambient clatter. A Toyota Prius
running on its electric motor, which it typically does at low speeds, is
virtually silent.

The National Federation of the Blind has been voicing concerns about the

unintended side effect of that silence since shortly after Toyota introduced
the Prius, the first mass-produced hybrid, in 2000. The group says these
quiet cars are a hazard not only to blind people but also to anyone who
needs sounds for safety, including children, the elderly and bicyclists.

"If cars don't make noise, blind people can't safely navigate streets. ?

This really is a problem," said John Paré, the National Federation of the
Blind's director of public relations.

A blind woman in California recently reported having her foot run over by a
Prius. She commented that she didn't even know the car was there before it
hit her. Several other blind people have described minor injuries or near
misses to the National Federation of the Blind, though the organization
hasn't kept detailed records of the complaints. The group forecasts even
worse accidents ahead, as the cars become more prevalent, unless automakers
develop some

sort
of noisemaker for these vehicles.

Hybrids have become a growing trend in American cars. There now are about
400,000 of them on U.S. roads, according to market researchers R.L. Polk &
Co.
New registrations doubled from 2004 to 2005, the most recent data available.

No pedestrian death has been linked to these cars. But, National Federation
of the Blind representatives note, there is no tracking mechanism, either.

Representatives for the two most prominent producers of hybrid cars, Toyota
and Honda, say they are aware of the sound concerns and are considering
options.

Aerospace materials engineer David Evans, who tested hybrid and electric

vehicles at Stanford University in the 1970s, has been lecturing on this

topic,
including speaking to the National Federation of the Blind. He says early
developers of the technology quickly learned that pedestrians couldn't hear
the cars and his group used whistles to solve the problem.

But carmakers are hesitant to add noise to the environment, and to incur

that expense, said Denise Morrissey, a spokeswoman for Toyota Motor Sales
USA.

"The (industry) trend is toward quiet powertrains in all sorts of vehicles,"
she said. "That trend has raised the need for other drivers and pedestrians
to increase caution and to be more aware of the surroundings."

Honda spokesman Sage Marie says this topic is a broad manufacturer's
concern, not something that each company should be pursuing individually. He
says the solution invariably will come through a collaboration among
government regulators from the National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration, concerned groups such as the National Federation of the
Blind, and the industry's trade associations, including the Association of
International Automobile Manufacturers.

Michael Cammisa, director of safety for that auto trade group, did not
return multiple telephone calls requesting an interview for this story.

Stein of the National Federation of the Blind and others already have begun
lobbying the Society of Automotive Engineers to develop protocols for
minimum sound levels for vehicles sold in the U.S.

Stein said her group is proactively navigating the bureaucracy before
someone gets killed or seriously injured in an accident that could have been
prevented.

In the meantime, blind pedestrians feel vulnerable.

Wilks, the Washington State School for the Blind's student body president,
said sound signals are particularly important to alert pedestrians to cars
making right turns across walkways.

Wilks was in the crosswalk between his schools a few months ago when two

cars, both turning right, pinned him in the middle. In another incident, in
January, he was about to step into the crosswalk when a driver decided to
speed up and make a right turn directly in front of him.

"That was really scary," he said. "I was just a couple of feet from the
car."

Both times, he said, the sounds of the combustion engines helped him to
avoid injury.

The National Federation of the Blind has become concerned enough about this
perceived threat that it conducted an experiment this year at its annual

conference.
About 30 blind or visually impaired members waited at an intersection in

front of the group's headquarters in Baltimore and were asked to signal when
they could hear a car approach. A Prius went by undetected. They repeated
the

experiment in a quiet alley. The Prius that time could be heard, but only at
about
15 feet away.

Stein said, "I was aware, in the abstract, that we were going to have
electric cars that are very quiet, and something would have to be done to
make those pedestrian-friendly. Then, all of sudden these things were out on
the road, and nothing had been done."

Stein said the National Federation of the Blind supports hybrid cars and

their benefits. But the group also wants to ensure they are safe for
pedestrians.

The organization is pitching for a device that makes the usual engine
noise:
"We want something that's not going to be irritating to people. We're hoping
for a low-tech, inexpensive solution that can be an automatic add-on."

The Washington State School for the Blind, meanwhile, has a dilemma. As a
state agency, its staff reports directly to an office in Olympia. That means
four or five road trips a week from the Vancouver school, plus the 300 to
600

miles a week that teachers drive to serve students throughout the state.
The
staff
makes those trips in a fleet of four hybrid vehicles.

Principal Craig Meador acknowledges the irony. "I kind of look at it this
way: The technology is here, whether we like it or not," he said. "The issue
isn't so much that we are doing a good job with our gas mileage as, are we
supporting something that can be a danger and sometimes lethal to the blind
community?
That concerns us."

He added, "We're probably going to see more of these kinds of things on the
market. We need to teach (blind students) to operate safely around these

cars,
rather than to bury our head in the sand." For a video clip of Washington
State School for the Blind student Nick Wilks making his trek to Hudson's
Bay High School, see columbian.com/video .

The debate
Should quiet hybrid cars have noisemakers added to them, as a way to alert
nearby pedestrians?

- On one side:
If that sound will save lives, then why not find an inoffensive tone for

these cars to emit?

- On another side:
Our lives are polluted enough with noise. Encourage people to cross streets
more carefully and drivers to slow near crosswalks.

- Get involved:
The National Federation of the Blind can be reached through nfb.org .

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