News:own to Earth: Trying to hear a hybrid approaching WELL DONE!!!! Imagine, the National Federation of the Blind, Chris Danielsen, "... did not have statistics about incidents between hybrids and the visually impaired." Hummmm, we need to put the statistical analysis on an audio CD and send it to them. Thank you Eric! A calm, reasoned answer is the best response. When news organizations find 'there is no conflict' to inflate, they quickly wander off to cover other subjects. Best of all, law makers and those who talk to them point out we want a reasoned answer, a solution that addresses the real problem. Bob Wilson
I like the buzzer/reciever in the cane idea a lot. I'm certainly not against improving safety, but the solution to improved technology is not to dumb it down again for the least common denominator. I'm not sure why Eric isn't President or Governor yet....
Again, I will repeat my observations: At 35mph, on most roads, the tires make more noise than an ICE engine at a constant velocity. During all the years that I have been a cyclist, if an ICE car is going 60mph (at constant velocity), it will be too late by the time you hear it. You must always look over your shoulder before moving to the left. As a result of both of these facts combined, a hybrid is no more dangerous nor quiet than an ICE, while traveling at constant velocity. Now for the parking lot ... there have been many times that I have been walking across a parking lot and I don't hear an ICE vehicle until it is only five or ten feet away from me. Modern-day ICE engines can be VERY quiet, especially when brand new. BOTTOM-LINE: if an EV is going slow, they should be watching out for you. If the vehicle is going faster, the tires will produce just as much road noise as an ICE vehicle. BUT, ABOVE ALL, IT IS THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE DRIVER TO NOT RUN OVER PEDESTRIANS!!!
Maybe stoplights can be fitted with these receivers also, so that they actually know when a car has been sitting there for five minutes! lol. Maybe my home security system can be fitted with a receiver, so I know if someone pulls into my driveway at 3am. But don't plan to be sneeky and stealth as you creep into a restricted area in your stealth EV, because they will know you are there. haha. (but for us law-abiding citizens, we would actually benefit ... so I'm all for it!) Maybe the drive-through at the local fast-food restaurant can be fitted with detectors also.
This idea would be good, not just for hybrids and EVs, but for all cars, and it would be good for blind people, deaf people, and kids. (Deaf people would have a vibrator rather than a buzzer, of course.) It's not just blind people who sometimes don't notice a car coming. Also, as cars are built more and more out of plastics and fiberglass, the transmitter would allow traffic sensors at stoplights to recognize their presence. Also small scooters. Are traffic sensors able to detect them now? Then doppler technology would allow for automatic speeding tickets. Libertarians will hate this, but getting traffic speeds back to legal would save a lot of lives.
Can it be used to shock people who are so busy gabbing on cell phones that they step into traffic without noticing that they have a red light and there are cars bearing down on them?
We had 3 people killed in this area by two seperate incidents in the past two weeks by a really, really quite vehicle.......a pickup truck. And the people killed had their eyesite.
When I think about the notification device, I have to think that it would need to put out a signal that would be detectable many feet away. To give truly ample warning of a vehicle approaching at, let's say, 35MPH the blind person would need notification while the car is still, what, 30, 40, perhaps 50 feet away. This would mean that a blind person walking down the sidewalk would receive notification every time a car stealths by within that distance. And with the increased number of hybrids on the road, that thing's going to be a'humming right along.
Pickup trucks are much more likely to kill someone in an accident than cars, especially people outside of the pickup truck. I would argue that pickup trucks and SUVs pose a much larger threat to deaf people because of how deadly they are in pedestrian accidents.
Who's Ericbecky? Don't answer. I had to google Ericbecky to find out. He's the Eric Powers in the article. Ericbecky is his tag name.
Thats my point. We had a 92 Toyota Camry that was so quite at idle that you could not hear it. Many times I had the attendant at the toll booth ask me if I had turned my car off. I personally think any LAW to require cars or trucks to make noise is STUPID! Just my opinion.
