Electric, hybrid cars run quiet: That's bad for blind people

[rmp yellow]

By STEVE EVERLY
The Kansas City Star
9-26-09

The auto industry for decades worked to make cars as quiet as possible. With electric cars the near ultimate has been achieved — virtually no noise at all.

But we may have a problem. To be more specific, pedestrians may have a problem. And if you're a blind pedestrian used to hearing cars coming, there may really be a problem.

"I think we're going to have people die," said Gary Wunder, president of the National Federation of the Blind of Missouri. "Anything that can outweigh a pedestrian by two tons needs to make a sound."

Last summer, a blind woman in Kansas City, Kan., had a very close call. She wasn't hit, but her white cane was run over and broken, she suspects by a hybrid vehicle.

More: http://www.kansascity.com/105/story/1471590.html

[Selatius]

1. We could simply require a speaker be placed under the hood that emulates the sound of an engine?

It probably wouldn't cost too much to implement through federal law.

[LuvNewcastle]

4. They could even let people choose

what they want the car to sound like. It could sound like a Model T or it could have a futuristic humming sound. They could come up with several sounds to choose from and let people decide what they want. I think that would be way cool.

[MurrayDelph]

19. Ooh! Ooh!

I want the sound-effect that Fred MacMurray's Model T made in the original "AbsentMinded Professor"



They could market that one as the "Flubber Flivver" sound.

[thunder rising]

11. Ahhh ... all this technology ... cards on the spokes! problem solved

[Chemisse]

2. Why do we have to have somebody die?

Everybody knows it's a problem, not just for blind people but for everyone who expects a bit of noise will accompany a vehicle.

So why not just fix the problem right now? There is simply no excuse for waiting until there are deaths.

[opihimoimoi]

3. For some odd reason, simple probs like this seem so hard to solve..

The Dumbing down of America might be a series cause

Its time to DUMMY UP

[Selatius]

6. It could simply be due to greed. See: Ford Pinto.

The lawyers at Ford figured it would literally be cheaper in the long-run to let people burn up in their cars when struck from behind and potentially face civil litigation than to modify the production lines to build a safer Pinto. Bean counters...so unimaginative.

[triple point]

9. Of course. The bean counters coerced the engineers into making quiet cars.

The noise pollution factor never entered their minds.

[Selatius]

10. Well, I was speaking of installing speakers in under the hood to emulate engine noise.

They probably don't want to do that because it'll just cost more. Hence: Ford Pinto example.

[Chemisse]

14. wtf! It could even be something as simple

As the things that click on a bicycle wheel as it goes around. Just something, for god's sakes!

[ashling]

12. If there were an easy, heap, univerally accepted solution,

it would still take some (minimal amount of time before it could be universally applied to all electric vehicles ... I guess in the meantime we require all blind people to not cross intersections? :sarcasm:

[TheCowsCameHome]

5. Offer them with a Harley Pipes option.

Then the whole town can hear them coming.

:rofl:

[triple point]

7. Just require every vehicle to sound like the ice cream wagon.

problem solved...

[Harry Monroe]

24. Then you'll have another problem

Little kids chasing after the vehicles, creating another potential danger. I can remember chasing after the ice cream truck when I was a kid and the sadistic son of a bitch would just step on the gas and gun it just to make me run faster! Hmmm...if we made ALL vehicles sound like ice cream trucks, then we may just lick the problem of obese kids!

[wpelb]

8. I think this is silly

First of all, no car, not even a hybrid, is perfectly quiet when it is moving. Even bicycles make some noise when they're rolling down the highway with a little speed.

As for not making noise when stopped, that may be true. But how many people have been run over by a stopped car?

I think similar complaints to this have been made when light rail has been brought into a community. The trains make very little noise (just the sound of the wires humming), unlike the racket from a diesel-powered freight train or even an Amtrak.

[A-Long-Little-Doggie]

18. We have a hybrid.

I got yelled at for going too fast by someone walking in the road in our neighborhood. I was going about 15 mph, so I must have been on all electric power. He didn't hear me coming, and then all of a sudden I was there, so he made a reasonable assumption that I was driving fast. He is probably not the only person I have scared, unfortunately. I try to make sure that I don't come up on people too fast, but I can definitely see the need to add some noise while in all-electric mode, especially for my blind nephew and all the other sight-impaired folks out there.

[tomm2thumbs]

13. or a bluetooth adapter that senses a blind person is near and will emit noise in their vicinity

it would be a good notice to the driver as well - to be on the alert at that specific moment vs. just running noise constantly.

of course the right will call it 'marking a blind person so they can be collected and put in a camp' so nevermind

[thelordofhell]

16. That's a good idea.......but reverse it

Have the blind person wear a bluetooth that will detect and tell them if a car or any other obstruction is near. Hell, it really should be built into a bluetooth anyway. How many asshats have you seen wearing a bluetooth and are oblivious to everything but their inane conversation. If the bluetooth told them, "Car...Car...Car", maybe they can stop their little talk and save their friggin' life. Just sayin'.

[Captain Hilts]

15. And animals. nt

[givemebackmycountry]

17. Well here is a money making opportunity for some enterprising inventive person.

I recall years ago, that there was something you could affix to the front of your vehicle that would emit a high frequency dog whistle noise, that would prevent collisions with deer standing in the middle of the road.
It would startle the deer, and they would run long before the vehicle ever got close to where they were at.

I'm not sure how they worked, or if they worked, but they were very popular in rural upstate New York where I lived in the 70's.
Sadly, my friend Keith Morse didn't have one on his '75 Chevy Camaro Z-28 SS when he hit a deer flush on a highway at 2am while doing about 110 mph.
He was flat out hauling ass.

There has to be a simple after-market solution to this problem that is going to make someone a pile of money.

Any ideas?
DU is a smart place!

[bertman]

20. Given the greatly heightened hearing capabilities of the blind, won't they hear the tires

crunching along on the roadway?

Regarding the animals, many of them are killed because they bolt into the roadway while being chased by some other critter. Also, while they may see a vehicle coming, they cannot accurately gauge how fast the vehicle is traveling toward them.

Someone will come up with a good solution for this.

[TankLV]

21. Oh for chrissake...

And if farts are made odorless, then nobody can be warned to get out of the room, either...

Sorry, but the blind will have to "adjust" on this one...

[Cairycat]

22. Guide dogs are now trained to watch out for hybrid cars

Of course not all blind and visually impaired people have guide dogs. I like the idea of a bluetooth type device. Many blind and visually impaired people don't necessarily want to identify as such all the time, so the bluetooth would not be noticeable.

Cairycat, on the road to blindness ....

[kristopher]

23. They already have it solved - it's called "Drivetones"

http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/blog/europeinsight/archives/2008/08/new_revenue_sou.html
New Revenue Source for E-Cars: Drivetones

Posted by: Jack Ewing on August 06

You’re heard of ringtones. The advent of electric cars may create a business for “Drivetones.” Former SAP exec Shai Agassi, who is behind an effort to market electric cars the same way cellular providers market handsets, tells Germany’s Auto Motor & Sport that his startup Project Better Place has copyrighted the Drivetones brand. Electric vehicles make very little noise, so to avoid running over clueless pedestrians they’ll need artificial sounds. Agassi is banking on the idea that people will want custom sounds for their electric vehicles. “Your car can sound like a Harley or a speedboat, no problem,” Agassi tells the magazine in its current issue.

Drivetones are just one of the ways Agassi’s venture is trying to imitate the cellphone industry. The startup, which is working with Renault and Nissan to produce the first cars for the Israeli and Danish markets, plans to charge customers little or nothing for the vehicles. Rather, it will make money selling people the electricity the way that mobile service providers make their real money on calling fees, rather than on handsets which they essentially give away. “We’re not Nokia, we’re T-Mobile,” Agassi told Auto Motor & Sport. To compensate for the limited range of electric vehicles, he wants to organize a network of service stations which will be able to swap in a new set of fully charged batteries in less than a minute.

The idea of vehicles with artificial Ferrari or jet-fighter sound effects is all well and good. But what happens when people equip their electric vehicles with endless loops of their favorite songs? What if that favorite song is Paris Hilton’s rendition of “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy?” In the same interview, Agassi posits what Berlin would be like without auto noise. But it sounds like if he realizes his dream the urban noisescape could get a lot more cluttered.