Federal Bill Says Silent Cars a Threat to Pedestrians

Give me a effin' break. The country finally gets a break... a little less noise pollution thanks to the quiet hybrid cars the government says we have to all eventually switch to, whether we need a new car or not. Now the government is going to tell us how much noise our new, non-necessary cars have to start making. Here's a novel idea... Why don't we make drivers be responsible for watching for pedestrians? And if pedestrians jaywalk or cross the street against the signal and they get hit by a car, then they get to think twice before they do it again? Should there be special studies and legislature passed to protect blind pedestrians from hybrid cars? The same visually impaired people who might get hit by quiet bicycles, Segways, motorized scooters and wheelchairs, careless other pedestrians, muggers, and stupid drivers with Flow Masters on their diesel 1/2-ton trucks, etc.? John Kerry has become an embarrassment to the Democrat Party, and he's dragging Arlen Spector, God love him, right along with him.

This is silly legislation, pointless. I nearly hit a pedestrial yesterday, when my car was NOT running silent. The problem was that she wasn't paying attention - and neither were any of the 6 friends with her. They all stepped into the street together, all talking to one another, not one of them looking for traffic. Noise as a deterrent is non-effective - I know of at least one case of a pedestrian walking into the side of a moving freight train: NOT intoxicated, NOT suicidal, NOT hearing- or sight-impaired - just NOT paying attention. My car does not need a noisemaker. Can somebody forward this to Sens. Kerry and Spector?

This isn't new. I notice that pedestrians who can hear my other cars can't hear my old Jaguar XJ and step in front of it.

I live in a big city & am not blind. But I think it is an excellent idea. You don't have to be blind to nearly get hit by "silent cars". There are a ton of crosswalks just within a few blocks of my house where you can't see if any cars are coming without starting to step out into the road or at least sticking your head out into the lane of traffic. Because of parallel parking on both sides of the street, cars block your view (and any moving car's view of pedestrians). The only way I can know if it is safe to even think about crossing is to listen for the cars coming. But if you can't hear them, you get the crap scared out of you when you peek your head out & a car is barreling towards you. Or the driver gets startled by someone sticking their head out or starting to step out in front of them, because they couldn't hear the car coming. There are so many stop signs around here that drivers don't come to complete stops at each stop sign & even if they do stop, it is usually in the middle of the crosswalk, so you can't count on the cars actually stopping.
If you look at who the two senators are that are proposing this, you will see that they represent states with large urban areas, thus they will be familiar with how big of an issue this is for everyone, not just the visually impaired.
This isn't just an issue about a few blind people in the suburbs not being able to hear some cars. This is an issue about every single pedestrian in all of the larger cities in the country, as well. This is about the children in those cities walking home from school everyday. We have enough pedestrians & bicyclists hit by cars everyday in my city, we don't need to make that number skyrocket, just because we can't hear the two tons chunks of metal barreling down the street anymore.

I live in a rural area and work in a small city (~90,000 people), but I haven't seen this as an issue. Many newer cars (not only hybids) are very quiet and in parking lots I listen to the wheel crunching over the pavement instead of listening for the engine. I would think on a city street even if you can't hear the engine, you should be able to hear either the wind noise or the wheel noise. As I ride my bike, that is definately what I hear behind me as a car approaches. But again this is only from my experience.

The hearing impaired don't benefit from noisier vehicles unless they're very loud and you can "hear" the vibrations through your feet or in your chest.

Visually impaired pedestrians can still be protected using the same technology used to protect motorcyclists from cars in the Dakar race. The motorcyclists have an audible alert system that warns them of a car coming up behind them — fast. The car carries a transmitter that triggers the alert.

Let's keep the silent cars and equip them with forward-facing directional transmitters. The visually impaired can carry a tiny receiver that will warn them of an approaching vehicle. Heck, that receiver can be fancy and even indicate distance and speed.

It saddens me when politicians are so far out of touch with technology that they don't know that a solution to this problem has existed for years.