Your answer is simple. There is no "problem".

There has not been one documented case of a hybrid's quietness being the cause of a single blind person's injury, much less death.

This "issue" is a non-issue.

In my humble opinion, blind_dad is the uninformed party, and is making a mountain out of a mole hill... no... ant hill.

No hybrid car is silent. They make substantial noise, even with the gas engine off. If he were more observant, he might notice this.

 

As we know, tires make a lot of noise. I can't tell a hybrid from any other car at speed. But at an intersection, with the engine off? I couldn't say - and I do a lot of walking. But I'm not blind.

I think what may be driving the discussion from the blind side is the possibility. If you're looking for data, possibility doesn't count.

So, it's the driver's responsibility to watch for the pedestrian, and the ped's. to watch out for the car.

 

If a hybrid is in motion, it will sound almost like any other modern car.
No problem to solve.

If a hybrid is stopped, it may be slighly quieter, but then, it's also non-hazardous when at a stop.
No problem to solve.

I think we have larger issues to deal with.
And no, I do not think more discussion is needed.
But that's just me.
I'm very anti-chicken-little.

 

Sad to say but I have made a mistake and will correct it shortly. We are trained to nip any personal attacks quickly but I had scanned the thread but missed the earlier, similarly spelled word 'in context.' Being a chronic poor speller, I next used "search" to find matching text. When I could not find the misspelled word it was impossible to check the context and it appeared to be an inflated claim.

Upon seeing the context, it is difficult to call it abusive since the exact word would have been "splattered" and there was no evidence of it being directed as derogatory of one person or a class of persons:
So here is my final call:

1. I'll follow-up with a through reading of every thread when "search" fails to find a claimed infraction.
2. "blind_dad" - use the "triangle-explanation" icon on a message that you think is abusive. This generates a message to moderators and we can then make a fact based, judgment call.
3. "twolostminds" - a word can be abusive on its own and this is confirmed by its context. The precise English word that could have been used is "splatter." Regardless, in this context "knapsplat" appears to reference a single, personal contact, not a group of people. (NOTE: similar references are found in husband and wife discussions.)

It looks as if the thread has moved on and is addressing facts and data. We can agree to disagree but being disagreeable or even too sensitive is something moderators must take seriously.

Bob Wilson

 

Still waiting to see some stats on this issue. ;-)

 

Well, that's ok as far as my thinking goes. However, I think it interesting if we were to look at the stats on "sighted" pedestrians who have been hit by all classes of motor vehicles. The point being, did having the advantage of sight make a difference?

Well, obviously not.

I might hazard a guess here and state that most of you do not do a lot of walking. I mean, you walk at least 3 miles, 3 times a week (which is what I do). Doing so gives you a feel for what traffic means to a pedestrian.

So, if a blind person crosses at a controlled intersection, there's little risk just at it would be for a sighted person. Everyone (drivers and pedestrians) know the rules and unless one or the pushes the envelop there's no problem. And there's where the problem occurs. Crossing a 7 lane street at a controlled intersection usually has no hazard. Making it past the 4 near-side lanes is comparitively risk free assuming someone doesn't pushes through the cross walk in a right turn to beat oncoming traffic just as the pedestrian steps off the curb. Now, as it happens the driver is checking left, not aware there's anyone on the curb beginning to walk into his path.

The sighted person would have seen the car beginning to roll (slow? fast?) and perhaps the driver would have made a last second check to the right. But, if not, it would be the pedestrian who now has the responsibility to prevent the accident.

A lot depends on the what sound if any the car is making as it prepares to make the turn, and also how accute is the hearing of the blind person.

For the father of the blind son: Edward R. Murrow once said, or maybe I thought he said, "We are not an afraid people". But we have I fear become so.

The world is not what it was when I was growing up. Your son has to develop confidence in his ability to overcome the challenges of this world. Cars in general, but being mugged, for example I think is more likely than getting hit by a car, silent or noisy.

I would not want some synthetic noise maker in my Prius. On the other hand personally now I would not object to having some sort of signaling device which would signal the presence of my car. You mentioned some factors which might pose a problem, but I think they're easily remedied.

Finally I think autos have pretty much had their way in our Western World. Suburbs and cities have been planned and built with nothing but streets to move traffic. No thought given to pedestrians. We should start looking at other possibilities.

OK. Off my soap box. Maybe next time we'll discuss bicycles in this mish mash.

 

Time to chime in.

If a person is in the middle of a quiet area and ANY vehicle approaches -- including a bicycle, they'll hear it (unless they're also hearing impaired... but that's a different topic). That's because a bicycle makes noise which is louder than the ambient sound when no vehicles are around.

If, on the other hand, a normal car with engine running is approaching, but a motorcycle with especially loud exhaust modification is in vicinity, they may not hear the car... because the motorcycle is so unreasonably loud that it distracts and drowns out all other sounds.

The point is this: if it's actually safe to cross the road, it'll be because NO cars are approaching. If the only car in the area is a hybrid running in pure EV mode then a person would absolutely hear that car unless their were other even noisier vehicles approaching (in which case it still wouldn't be safe to cross the road.) Particularly busy roads tend to have pedestrian cross-walks with crossing signals. The law in many (most?) areas is that the presence of pedestrian entering a designated cross-walk with no crossing signals (in other words nothing more than a yellow pedestrian cross walk sign and a couple of white stripes going across the road) is the SAME AS A STOP SIGN (if ONLY driving tests were harder to pass ... I am SOOOO annoyed at the number of safety laws to which people are blissfully ignorant. Sadly, today's written driving tests are so ridiculously easy to pass that a person with an IQ of 60 will almost surely pass the test on their first attempt even if they didn't study... including if they can't read english. Alas, I digress, as this is also another topic.)

The circumstance in which people are caught by surprise are places like shopping mall parking lots where the hybrid is going _very_ slowly down the aisle of cars (e.g. 5 mph) while in EV mode. In such circumstances the car is very quiet but the driver is also acutely aware of (and annoyed by) the shoppers who are blissfully walking down the very center of the aisle so that nobody can pass them.

When the hybrid is going 25+ mph, that car is "noisy". It would only _not_ be heard if there were even noisier vehicles in the area.

The problem with a "noise maker" in a car is that it's unreasonable to have it running whenever the car is running, and the cost of making it only sound-off when a blind person is in the area will be expensive. It doesn't matter if you can think of way to make it for $3... as soon as it becomes law it has to go through extensive safety testing -- the same as everything else mandated by law, and THAT makes everything expensive, even if it would otherwise be cheap.

I think that whenever a problem is able to have a cheap and effective solution, that solution should be preferred over complex and expensive solutions. A white cane is cheap and tends to be noticed. It's simple and not prone to failure. An electronic system that somehow detects the that the combination of hybrid car in EV mode AND a blind person are in proximity to each other (and I can think of lots of ways to do this, including systems that don't have "sensors" at all), and this must be installed on EVERY hybrid car and would STILL require that the blind person wear some device to alert the car -- well that's going to be expensive, complex, require extensive testing, and still be prone to failure.

I think in a few years it'll be both practical and cheap to do something more sophisticated. For example, there are already lots of applications on GPS-enabled cellphones which deal with location-based services. I can put an app on my iPhone which alerts me whenever I happen to be in reasonably close proximity to one of my friends and it doesn't require any proximity sensors or direct contact between our phones... our phones just keep posting our position to an online service (this isn't future... this technology exists today). The whole thing is rather passive. And you get a text alert whenever a friend is nearby.

One could easily adapt such an idea for safety purposes. E.g. blind people get a special designation at an online service and cars have a similar app built into their navigation system & travel services... if a car happens to come within a short distance (say within 500') of a blind person, the car alerts the driver.

But the problem is not all cars have GPS yet. It's still a symbol of a high-end car (although hybrids tend to be thought of as high-end and I suspect that proportionately more hybrids sold today have a factory GPS option than is available for other cars.)

Such a system would cost a lot of money to implement today, but not so much when GPS-enabled cars & phones with location-based services become prevalent.

It would also be extremely useful to alert the drivers to the presence of an emergency vehicle. The more "shared purposes" that could be applied, the cheaper it would be to implement because it would be one of those things that pretty much everyone needs to have anyway and not viewed as an "extra" burden.

But that day is not today. Today it would be an extra burden that can, in my opinion, all be avoided by the use of some good 'ol fashioned common sense, careful & observant driving, and the use of a white cane.

 

I have read all of the follow up posts and have thought about them. Several good points were made. Some suggested it was not the manufacurers problem to solve, it was society attitude. I have to agree that society has ignored blindness for a long time. I am in a Woody Hayes period, where I have observed that the blind have been discriminated against and discriminated against. I am tired of it, of being polite. Public schools do less for blind kids. Society ignores blindness. Blind people are 70 percent unemployed....not because they cant do it with a little accomodation, but because they dont get the chance to do so. Show me the work environment of yours that has blind folks employed at the national average of braille blindness (4 people out of every 1000). Your office doesnt have blind people employed at that rate, none do. So pardon me while I point out the prejudice. My son is smart, but my question is will he get a chance? Will you hire him when he grows up? It is a rhetorical question, but a tough one. Society ignores blindness every day.

When someone crosses the street, there is a shared responsibility. The driver has to be careful, the pedestrian has to be careful. Because the driver moves a two ton piece of metal, it is usually smart for the pedestrian to have the final say on when to cross or not cross. Several have suggested that the noise-hybrid was not the solution, that drivers just had to be more careful. This is folly, I have to call it so. Todays drivers, and I drive among them, are into their cell phones, loud music, and other distractions. Now you can get tv in your car, you can get a talking Garmin gps that pulls your attention away from the wheel. It takes a good driver to cope. I see drivers in all states of goodness. So my son, who can see only a tiny bit, has to hear enough to cope with all the various levels of attentiveness that drivers offer him as he crosses the street. Sighted people look and listen, blind people just have to listen.

I live in Houston, the city where a Metro light rail hit a blind person with a cane. So this trained driver, driving a huge electric train, could not avoid hitting a person. How much noise does an electric train make? The official report on the accident was "the blind person was confused". Wonder why the blind person was confused? No audible warnings at intersections? True. Very few audible traffic lights in US. So why not make the silent cars audible? I dunno. It seems cheap and quite feasible, but the idea gets a lot of push back. I wonder why there is push back? If it doesnt hurt and might help and its cheap, what is the big deal? I know, there just arent enough blind people to justify the expense. So a few blind people hit by cars or trains from time to time, that is just urban collateral damage I guess some suggest. With all due respect, I dont buy into that.

Sure the white cane is a big fat "warning" that says "blind person here" and allows the driver to take extra precautions. If all drivers are responsible, that is all we would need. My son uses a long white cane. I think the vast majority of the world actually recognizes the long white cane as a blindness indicator. I once had a PhD educated friend ask me if that was a star wars light saber that my son held. It was his white cane. So its just not so clear to everyone...even though I wish it was. Drivers from other countries newly in the US, do they recognize this tool for what it is?

I also respectfully disagree with the person who says that I have made a mountain out of an anthill. You need to think about what you said. You need to get blackout shades and a long white cane and go stand on a streetcorner and cross it. God help you if a hybrid goes by in silent mode. For the person that says that I clearly havent paid attention and that silent hybrids make plenty of noise in silent mode I ask you, why are you posting? You have nothing to offer me other than bad information if you suggest that hybrids in silent mode make plenty of noise. You take me for a fool. I am many things, but not that.

For those that suggest that a proximity warning gadget is the answer I can only ask these questions:

If you are crossing a boulevard and the prox warning goes off, is the hybrid behind you or in front of you? If two hybrids are nearby, one moving away and one moving toward, what will the prox gadget do? If the prox warning device fails because it was a cheap gadget, is it the drivers fault, blind person's fault, or manufacturers fault? If a hybrid makes a little noise, the doppler effect and noise level lets you know if it is going toward you or away. If you get hit then and the noise was on, I would say it was probably the blind person's fault as long as the driver took normal precautions. The little noise is the insurance policy that makes everybody safer. Somehow that generates pushback. I think that is curious, why a little noise would generate pushback if it made pedestrians safer.

For those that thing I worry too much, I agree with you a little. But take your 11 year old, tell him to travel independently because his independance will help him make it on his own, blind fold him, and put him on a corner with a prox warning gadget. You wont be willing to turn him loose, that is my guess. Welcome to my world.

Take care my friends. I hope I caused one of you to think, and for those have a nice day. For others that thought and disagreed, you have a good one too. ciao. blind_dad

 

The point is not that society can live with one blind person's injury here and there. The point is that HYBRIDS ARE NOT SILENT. You have missed the point. While few of us have blind family members, the people on this site are very technically and scientifically inclined. The average IQ on this site is way, way, above average. People here tend to be very rational, and logical. More than any other newsgroup I have ever read.

The folly is in your thinking. Thinking that there is a problem that needs to be fixed. If this were a true problem, I'm sure every hybrid owner out there would be insisting on a solution. Not a single driver on this site wishes to harm a blind person, muchless a child, and your implications, are quite frankly, offensive.

IF sir, you did a technical, scientific, objective analysis of this whole "notion" that something needs to be "fixed", your fears would be put to rest, and you would sleep better at night. Sadly, this appears not to be the case.

If you are a betting man, the odds of your son getting injured by a regular non-hybrid automobile are about 1 in 1000. The odds of your son getting injured by a hybrid are about 1 in 1,000,000. That's what the objective, non emotional math says. *

Shouldn't we find a remedy for all those "regular" cars first?
I mean, really.... it has 1000 times more potential for doing good. Bob Wilson can back me up with the math here.

*Based upon 1% of all cars being Hybrids, and that half of them have the engine off at intersections. NOT ALL DO, ALL THE TIME as all hybrid owners know.
Also assumes hybrid owners have half as many accidents per year, which is very close to actual since most, but not all, hybrid owners are "conservative" drivers by nature.

 

i think the push back comes from lack of evidence that there really is a problem. i hate to make it sound like it requires x amount of people to get hit before it is a problem, but we have to be realistic too. i hear about people who can see and hear get hit by trains all the time, were they confused? i do agree that the blind are ignored to a degree but let's go after things that are higher priority. I can't imagine that adding a sound device to a hybrid being in the top 10 issues of importance, but I could be wrong. I would rank getting them jobs higher, but that's just me.