Electric Car Noise
One huge problem with hybrids is the lack of electric car noise. Put another way, hybrids don’t make enough noise so hearing impaired people are at serious risk of injury or even death.
There is currently a bill in Congress to address the biggest issue that electric cars currently possess. Electric car noise is nonexistent in the current crop of hybrid cars. That’s right, they make little to no noise and as a result pedestrians who are either blind, lost in thought and not watching the road or simply looking in the wrong direction, can suffer injury because they never heard it coming.
The bill in Congress would like to have the Department of Transportation to establish safety guidelines so that the issue of electric car noise would cover the lack of sound made by hybrid and electric vehicles that would include having it make some kind of discernible sound or at the very least, an audible beep when in range of a person.
In a new video produced by Subaru, blind people were placed on the side of the road to see if they could the electric car noise was audible to them in their new hybrid synergy drive. The answer was a resounding NO. Hybrid and electric cars are potentially silent killers, and the proposal which is strongly backed by the National Federation for the Blind is for the car manufacturers to add some kind of fake engine noise. The bill is also backed by 16 US Congressman who wants to establish a minimum sound level.
This is being pushed further by the fact that just last month a boy was hit by a Toyota Prius due in part to the fact that he didn’t hear it coming.
On a positive note, two Stanford students think they come up with a workable compromise where they have the hybrids making a sound something like a motorbike with a cold that’s in need of service. It has been joked that perhaps Brian Eno , who designed the Windows 95 sound, might be called on to help with the sound issue.
While it’s true that the hybrids and electric vehicles offer low carbon emissions and are on the cutting edge, they should have a non-threatening sound that heralds the fact that they’ve just passed you. It doesn’t need to be very loud, but just loud enough to warn people when crossing the street.
As they stand, electric car noise is still not there, and these vehicles pose a hazard to pedestrians and especially the blind who are totally dependent on their ears to navigate streets and roads. Children and seniors are another group that’s vulnerable. As of now, the National Federation of the Blind is gathering attention by putting up web pages and making videos to highlight the problem with the Quiet Cars that are currently being manufactured.
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