Posted on 07/07/2009 1:44:44 AM PDT by Schnucki
The silent hum of hybrid petrol-electric vehicles, which recently became number one best-selling cars in Japan, has been deemed dangerous to pedestrians, in particular the visually impaired.
When switched from fuel to battery mode, the vehicles make a barely perceptible noise, prompting campaigners to urge the installation of noise devices to prevent accidents.
A new government panel of scholars, consumers, police, vision-impaired groups and automobile industry leaders has been formed in Japan to discuss whether the eco-friendly cars should be installed with compulsory noise-making devices.
"We have received opinions from automobile users and vision-impaired people that they feel hybrid vehicles are dangerous," said a transport ministry official.
"Blind people depend on sounds when they walk, but there are no engine sounds from hybrid vehicles when running at low speed" and on the electric motor, he added.
A report will be drawn up by the panel by the end of the year and their proposals discussed at the Transport Ministry's committee on automobile safety before it is drafted into legislation.
High oil prices and growing concern about global warming emissions have fuelled the soaring popularity of environmentally-friendly hybrid vehicles, particularly among Japanese car owners.
Toyota's latest recession-defying Prius last month became the best-selling car in Japan's domestic market, selling 22,292 vehicles, more than 6,000 more than the same month last year, according to the Japan Automobile Dealers Association.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Automakers can’t win. For years people have been bitching about noisy engines and now when they finally come up with a silent vehicle, all they get is a new set of bitches.
I have to say I do understand their point. I’ve seen a kid run down by one and it was partly because he didn’t hear it. Yes, he should have looked, but if there’d been some noise, it would have given him a second chance.
I suppose that helping the visually impaired was how truck beepers got rolling as well.
Have the radio always be on, and very loud.
Each car would come with 4 pins, to be used to hold a baseball card against the wheel spokes.
Bicycles are equally silent. You’d think it would be a welcome respite from highway and street noise. It used to be that we’d give a small kid who blindly rushed at the streets a few swats on the hiney to discourage that kind of behavior, later on teaching them to look both ways before crossing once they were old enough to understand. For the blind, there should be transmitters to receivers they can carry (perhaps by modulated light beam to make compliance easy to monitor), not noise that annoys everybody.
Truck beepers address the problem that the driver can’t see what’s close behind his bulky vehicle.
This is one of the most absurd things I’ve ever heard.
The blind use a cain. I look out for them. When people are around, I go extra slow. It’s just absurd to blather on about this fantasy problem.
People have gone nuttier than a fruitcake. Complain, complain, complain...
It never ends, and they’re constantly looking for something else to wail about.
Get a fricken life people!
Yes, well I gave him a Saturday detention - and got mildly reprimanded for my lack of sympathy. He was lucky, physically he got away with bruising. Almost stopped my heart watching it.
And, yeah, bikes are equally silent - but first of all they are less likely to do serious damage, and secondly bike riders seem to be more aware of the issue than car drivers are at the moment - maybe because they know if they hit somebody, it’s quite likely they’ll be injured too, or maybe just because car drivers are used to people being able to hear them and so don’t even think about it.
If these vehicles were being commonly used for country driving along otherwise quiet roads, I could see real arguments in favour of preserving their silent running. But as I understand it, their primary use is for urban running. A silent vehicle in an environment where you are used to being able to hear them coming is something I can see as at least potentially problematic.
So no kids have been run down by cars with gasoline engines?
Perhaps they should have loud noisemakers too.
Every electric car will have a noise maker, because 0.000015% of them will be involved in an accident at some point in their existence.
Man have we go one neurotic global society these days.
Doesn’t matter too many pedestrians and bicyclists are too busy talking on their cell phones to hear the oncoming traffic.
Of course they have.
But just because lots of things are potentially dangerous, doesn’t mean some things aren’t more dangerous than others.
You can’t completely eliminate danger - but sometimes a minor modification can make something safer.
The world isn’t A+ and F - going from a D to a B is worth doing.
Is it worth it in this case? I don’t know, frankly. It’s not my call and I’d want to see a lot more data if it was. I do know that I can see the risk they are talking about in the article. I’ve seen a kid hit by a silent vehicle who I am pretty sure would not have been hit if there’d been a decent level of noise generated by the vehicle.
In many locales, riders of bicycles are required to sound horns (or holler) if on a potential intersecting path with a pedestrian.
If a sound must be generated all the time, I’d think it should be a soft whirring sound like an electric fan. Something unobtrusive, and something that can be shut off altogether to save energy on restricted access roads.
Look, ask yourself if that kid would have been paying attention, if he would have been hit. I’m sick and tired of everyone having to be responsible except the kids.
I can’t even use a number of the side streets in my town, because they have huge bumps in the middle of them, so that you can’t go faster than ten to fifteen miles per hour. The excuse is it’s dangerous for kids. I’m talking about 15 bumps per half a mile.
Here once again, we’re going to be asked to so something absurd, because little Johnny is too precious to instruct to look both ways. Hell no.
I do not want my car to have a cow bell on it every where I go in the electric mode. It would drive me crazy. It would drive anyone batty to listen to that.
Ahhh lets see, one clothes pin and one poker playing card.
Not trying to pester you, but you mark my word.
If they put a noise device on the electric cars, it won’t be ten minutes before someone else start bitching about noise polution.
Imagine what it will be like with ten electrics twittering around a parking lot.
Kids make mistakes, and they should suffer consequences because of those mistakes in at least some cases. But forgive, if I don't believe, failing to pay attention while crossing the road should be treated as a capital offence where the risk of death should just be accepted as a potential consequence.
And, no, I don't want cow bells on cars. If some sort of noise is desirable, it should be something reasonably similar to the sound of a typical internal combustion engine. Which I've been hearing for years and hasn't come close to driving me crazy yet.
I'm sure you're right about that - not all complaints are reasonable. But by the same token, not all complaints are unreasonable.
Honestly, it seems to me that some folks are too fricken stupid to get out of their own way, so now the rest of us have to pick up the slack.
Did your parents and teachers follow you around with a pooper scooper? Mine sure as hell didn’t, and somehow I survived.
I never once in my life walked out into traffic. I guess I was a lot more intelligent than the little darlings these days.
I’ll be damned if I’ll stand silently by, so that my car has to make noise 100% of the time, so some jackass’s kid can be safe 0.00000000025% of the time.
And you are in charge of teaching kids... Lordy.
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