Varoom!! Varoom!! - GreenHybrid

bwilson4web · #1 (**permalink**) 02-20-2008, 09:53 AM

http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-987...ml?tag=newsmap

Quote:

. . .
The trade association--which represents BMW, Ford Motor, General Motors, Toyota, Volkswagen, and other major carmakers--said it would be pleased to take a seat on the task force but worried the bill puts too much emphasis on noise-generating technology alone.

The car makers encouraged legislators to be open-minded about the range of technologies that could be used to resolve the blind community's concerns and also noted that a committee established within the Society of Automotive Engineers, an industry-sponsored group, is already researching such approaches.

For instance, they pointed to the potential use of a forthcoming wireless warning system that will allow cars to talk to each other and to roadway infrastructure. That system, known as Dedicated Short Range Communications, or DSRC, could be used to warn pedestrians, blind or otherwise, of oncoming cars with "far more specificity, meaning, and context" than a simple noise generator, but the wording of the current Maryland bill seems to preclude the task force from considering that option, the AAM suggested.

. . .

Michael Gosse, president of the National Federation of Blind of Maryland, said all his group wants is a cost-effective solution based on the sounds that cars are already capable of making.

"I don't know about you," he told the state senate committee, "but I don't want cars going down the street beeping like those little carts do in the airport. I think that would be pretty annoying."

Ok, so here's the deal. We mount an extra set of speakers in the grill powered by a an MP3 player that we can download 'ring tones'. Every time our cars go into EV mode, the MP3 player kicks off and suddenly:

Harley Davidson motorcycles
stampeding elephants
'music' of choice (Opera, the Magic Flute)
Lord of the Dance
"beep" "beep" "beep" "arseh*loes"
steam colliope (which died when accurate cannons were invented!)
default cell phone ring tone
whining, crying child

On a serious point, the blind insist that it must be sound, which is wrong since stationary hazards make no sound. Limited to just sound, this legislation is fatally flawed.

Bob Wilson

gpsman1 · #2 (**permalink**) 02-20-2008, 10:55 AM

Stuff like this drives me nuts.

A few blind people may, or may not be affected by a few million "silent" vehicles. So lets affect millions of cars and drivers, at a collectively huge expense.

This is like in a town not far from me, a town of 200 people complain that the Union Pacifc railroad makes too much noise, or blocks their access to the highway for 'up to 10 minutes at a time' and wants Union Pacific to spend millions on sound barriers and a track "overpass" for 200 residents.

Union Pacific ( rightly so ) says "We were here since 1870. You chose to put your house close to our tracks. We were here first."

I know, not the same, but it is in the sense that a small group thinks they are more important than the masses. That railroad serves millions of people a year, and 200 people are upset.