There was a tv movie on CBS last night. "Sweet nothing in my ear" I think the title was.

It was about deaf people, deaf parents, parents with deaf children, and such.
The movie was very pro-deaf pride ( whatever that is ).

One line struck me. While the kids were playing outside one parent said of the deaf child...
"I worry so about him getting struck by a car or something."

The other parent says:
"Being deaf doesn't make him any more likely to be struck."

I know, not the same as what started this thread, but kind-of related.

The whole thing is silly.

First they want quiet cars to make more noise.

But there is a law against playing your sound system too loud.

Of course, there should be penalties for drivers who follow people in stealth mode then honk at them, scaring them to death. He knows who he is.

Donna

Last week I pulled into a gas station. The station had 2 pumps in a configuration where one car pulls in behind another. There was a vehicle at the first pump and 2 gents talking to one another behind the car. I pulled in, apparently unnoticed, stopped the car, and one of the guys turned around and walked straight into my front bumper. You just can't make a law protecting stupid people, it's been tried too many times before.

It gets late early out there. - Yogi

True. Equally unfortunately, you can't legislate against whiners, which is what these blind people and their "advocates" are (along with way too many others). Don't the blind supposedly have better hearing to compensate? Well, my wife can easily hear the engines on both of our HCH2s even at low speeds, and she's 100% deaf in one ear.

The blind study by Professor Rosenblum indicates there is hybrid noise at 5 mph that could be heard at the same distance as their reference vehicle with 8 dB of hearing aid gain. I have no problem with giving the blind hearing aids and mandating they use them when crossing streets . . . what is good for the goose is sauce for the gander.

There is a real problem with accidents both pedestrian and other but sound makers on hybrids does not address this carnage. Proposing an ineffective solution takes time and effort away from those that address the deaths of 5,000 pedestrians and cyclists. Making hybrids as noisy as today's vehicle only continues the dying.

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.