Anyone remember the suggestions this thread needs relocation to Anything Goes?

61.5mpg lifetime - 82mpg in recent months

Best Run >
www.cleanmpg.com

"fanatic" is what the lazy call the dedicated

Looks like we're thinking similarly. Oh no

Steve

STOP terrorism - Drive a HYBRID

Vehicles:
350 miles a week ------------ 2006 HCH II, Magnetic Pearl, w/NAVI (born on May 25, 2006)
350 miles a month ---------- 2003 Mazda Tribute ES-V6
350 miles a year (for now) - 1986 Mercedes 560SL

Crosswalks work, sometimes.
But ONLY in the city. Many blind people rely on seeing-eye dogs to get around. These dogs need to HEAR your vehicle approaching just like the blind person does. Otherwise, confusion (and potential catastrophe) results.
Remember, ANY accident with a pedestrian is likely to hurt/maim/kill that pedestrian. It doesn't take much speed at all.

Steve

STOP terrorism - Drive a HYBRID

Vehicles:
350 miles a week ------------ 2006 HCH II, Magnetic Pearl, w/NAVI (born on May 25, 2006)
350 miles a month ---------- 2003 Mazda Tribute ES-V6
350 miles a year (for now) - 1986 Mercedes 560SL

If they're not in the city then I'm going to be moving fast enough for them both to hear my tires and stereo coming down the road....

If they're in the middle of the parking lot I must ask How the hell did they get there? If somebody drove them that person can tell them to move out of the way. The buses let them off at the door....

Before this gets way off track, I'll say again: There is no way anyone can pretend that a hybrid car in EV mode is so quiet that you won't hear it when its going fast enough to pose a real danger. At any speed where the car might be really that quiet, I have plenty of time to react to any possible danger of colliding with a pedestrian, blind or otherwise, even if they deliberately jump in front of my car. The complaint is total nonsense.

--My hybrid came home!--
Ottawa owners check in here

Randy

The complaint stems from one informal test that has yet to be replicated or properly instrumented. We don't know either the surface or speeds or if seeing eye dogs were used. Where are the dBm readings?

I think a better answer is to conduct an independent test, something we have the ability to do, that documents the critical characteristics and lays the facts and data:

• Sound level and spectrum as a function of speed in EV mode.
• Sound level and spectrum as a function of road surface.
• Sound level and spectrum of vehicle with ICE running.
• Seeing eye dog ability to detect an EV vehicle.
• Training a dog to detect an EV vehicle.

A little bit of empirical data would go a long way to understanding for all parties.

Bob Wilson

Operation Iraqi Oil Freedom:

Automatic, stock, project car.

My other 1500 cc car:

Automatic, stock, backup car.
Free speech, dialog and knowledge thrives without the poison of SPAM.

Hmmmm, I have this old bell from a Union Pacific steam locomotive (A bg one!). Now, I need a bracket, a pull rope, brass polish ....

It is the ignorant among us that will eventually destroy us all.

The complaint is NOT total nonsense. Are YOU blind? Do YOU know these things? Having lived with a blind person a number of years, I can attest to their powerless feeling about their surroundings. The OTHER senses HAVE to make up (as best they can) for the lack of sight. The Federation for the Blind does many good deeds, and is far too busy to be farting around with a matter of total nonsense. They, and blind people have a point, and people need to contemplate the issue. This is NOT a new issue for the blind, but it has increased the danger somewhat by the quietness of the hybrid running fully on electric power, mostly at slow city-block and parking lot speeds.
There may well be a better, different, safer solution, involving the blind person rather than the car - wearing a device that detects large moving objects' and warns if they are within x seconds of the wearer. This device would be useful for potentially many more situations and people. Blind & deaf could possibly use a device like this if it vibrated, rather than having only an audible warning.
Someone walking out in front of you when you didn't expect them to (even after seeing the person standing at the corner, for instance), or someone changing direction suddenly. You cannot tell me with certainty that you or any of multitudes of other drivers could always react in time to avoid a collision with this pedestrian. The pedestrian must (and usually desires to) assume some of the responsibility for their own safety. I certainly don't want my life in a random driver's hands.
Whatever, the issue is real. Minor in number and situation probably, but still real. I was almost run over by a golf cart recently, and I both see AND hear quite well. So does the driver of the golf cart. The issue was me darting to the right side of a parking lot drive (from the left side). I heard nothing. This cart was merely a few feet away from me as I made my maneuver. Cart driver yelled and swerved just in time. Had it not been for my (lightning ) reflexes AND good hearing/vision, I might have made the emergency "get away" maneuver in the wrong direction, and into the cart.
Just don't be sure sure that you are ALWAYS such an attentive and alert and responsive driver that you could never hit a pedestrian. It happens - with pedestrians that can hear AND see. Some are at slow enough speed that the person struck actually does live. And, no, they weren't ALL wearing Walkmans or iPods. Were they all just oblivious to their surroundings and walked right in front of a car anyway? Maybe many were. But you're telling me that YOU could've avoided that oblivious pedestrian.
You are much surer of your driving skills than am I.

Steve

STOP terrorism - Drive a HYBRID

Vehicles:
350 miles a week ------------ 2006 HCH II, Magnetic Pearl, w/NAVI (born on May 25, 2006)
350 miles a month ---------- 2003 Mazda Tribute ES-V6
350 miles a year (for now) - 1986 Mercedes 560SL

Perhaps nonsense was too strong a word - unsubstantiated would have been better. I apologize for phrasing this in a way that led you to take offense. I point out merely that unless one is hearing-impaired (and there is no sarcasm intended in saying that), one can easily hear a hybrid vehicle in EV mode due to road noise. I am happy to qualify that statement by saying I agree with Bob that reasonable and demonstrable experiments should be done to prove the point one way or the other.
As to the rest of your response - I believe you didn't entirely understand what I wrote. I never said that I could never hit a pedestrian. I only said that at speeds where the car is quiet enough that it truly could not be heard, that it is going so slowly (walking speed) as to provide lots of reaction time. To be fair, I was also assuming that anyone reading ths post would also have read my earlier post, and take what was written there as implicit: "if you're getting close enough to someone that they could get in the way, give a short honk of the horn". Perhaps if I had repeated that, you would have better understood my whole argument.
Incidentally, I have both worked with and lived with blind people in the past, enough to lay claim that I am certain I am no less familiar with the condition and the inherent problems than you.

--My hybrid came home!--
Ottawa owners check in here

Randy

Unsubstantiated - I agree.

BTW, I've read every post. I usually do.
Many auto-pedestrian accidents occur at walking speed. I cannot believe you can't see (no pun intended) an issue here. You are delivering a promise that you (and all other drivers, I must presume) are so in control and alert at all times so as to not let such an incident occur. Well, then, just how do they occur? And this issue adds BLIND to the mix for the pedestrian.
If I were blind, I would not want to trust ENTIRELY on other's (drivers) skillsets in accident avoidance. Especially when we already know that autos and (sighted) pedestrians collide, occasionally.
Now if every driver did as you do: "if you're getting close enough to someone that they could get in the way, give a short honk of the horn", then maybe, just maybe, we'd have no more of these accidents. Yet they still occur, meaning something going wrong today. Even if "warning honking" became a LAW, would everyone do it? (55MPH is the max-speed law in many areas - what do you think the compliance-rates are?). The consequences of not following this common-sense rule could be far more disastrous than getting a speeding ticket.

Steve

STOP terrorism - Drive a HYBRID

Vehicles:
350 miles a week ------------ 2006 HCH II, Magnetic Pearl, w/NAVI (born on May 25, 2006)
350 miles a month ---------- 2003 Mazda Tribute ES-V6
350 miles a year (for now) - 1986 Mercedes 560SL