The dangers of silent cars. :sigh:

The solution looking for a problem.

Re. HR 5734

There is currently a bill before the House of Representatives that would require all automobiles to emit a minimum amount of noise at low speed. The impetus for this bill comes from the “blind coalition.” The idea is that if blind people cannot see a car, then a quiet car is a hazard.

I cannot fathom a good reason for cars to purposefully emit sound at ANY speed. This is a silly, expensive solution looking for a problem. And it is a “solution” that may well make all pedestrians *less* safe. Most car makers are currently assuming that this requirement will soon be law, and are scrambling to figure out how best to incorporate it – instead of working on a multitude of other more important aspects to get more EVs and hybrids on the road sooner.
 
Car makers have spent untold millions trying to make ICE vehicles almost silent. And now we're on the cusp of legislating that they all make a minimum amount of noise. Having cars make noise so that they can be heard over the other cars is akin to the futility of always needing to drive a larger car than your neighbor to ensure the safety of your family. It is self-defeating. In a truly quiet environment, "silent" cars can be heard easily. It is typically the din of all the other cars that masks the signature sounds of EVs and hybrids. Oh... and what do we do about the segment of our population that is deaf? Legislate that all cars also need to be painted day-glow green so they will stand out from the other brightly-colored cars? If we all depend on sound to locate dangerous, mobile cars in parking lots, we’ll be in big trouble if one of the noisemakers breaks. And while all the cars are making noise, how are we expected to hear other pedestrians and cyclists around us?
 
Quiet cars may pose a bit of a challenge for a small subset of our population. And this small subset of our population should work on ways to keep themselves safe. These same quiet cars create a more beneficial environment for the bulk of the population. Gas cars kill thousands of people indiscriminately every year due to the pollution they emit. Should we maybe be putting our time and effort into fixing the problem that is unquestionably killing people before we fool with the "problem" that does more good than harm? We don’t need more noise pollution, and we don’t need more stumbling blocks put in front of the companies who are trying to bring the cars to market that will benefit the *entire* population.
 
Thousands of sighted pedestrians are struck and killed by our current crop of "loud" cars every year. That these cars make more sound than EVs doesn't seem to make them "safe." What we need is more personal responsibility in the case of drivers and pedestrians (iPods anybody?) alike. As drivers, it is our responsibility to be aware of everything around us. As pedestrians and cyclists, it is our responsibility to stay out of harm’s way. Put those two concepts together, and we have a safe situation for everybody that does NOT involve increasing our noise pollution or saddling the budding EV industry with a useless (and possibly harmful) requirement.

A letter to lawmakers:

RE: H.R. 5734 ( GovTrack: H.R. 5734: Text of Legislation )
I am a Toyota Prius owner and driver and have owned my Prius for 4 1/2 years now. I purchased it to reduce the amount of gasoline I burned and to support what I viewed as the first real technological step forward in automobile technology and one that could, eventually, lead to a future where we would no longer be dependent upon foreign petroleum imports.

One of the great benefits of having a Prius is that when at low speeds the internal combustion engine completely shuts off and the car rides almost silently down the road. Recently the press has picked up on a few isolated reports of concern expressed from a tiny segment of the blind community about potential risks of a blind person being struck and injured by a hybrid while running in the all electric mode.

I'll try to be fairly brief, but the recent HR5734 bill bothers me greatly. First of all there have, in over 10 years of the Prius being sold in the USA, been no reports of injuries or deaths due to blind individuals being injured. Next, it's highly unlikely that a blind individual would be walking in an area where the hybrids would be in silent mode...parking lots, heavy traffic, etc. Most blind people use cross walks on roadways when ambulatory and having a need to enter a roadway. Once upon a time we used to hear about the problems of "Noise Pollution"...hybrids offer a partial solution to that problem. And now there's a proposal actually legislate more noise! That alone is really unbelievable to me.

Significantly, this resolution calls for large expenditures to research this issue, implementation would cost more, enforcement hasn't been addressed (ie. many of us would find a way to disable the "sound maker"--would that make me a criminal?).

Finally, for 100 years now cars have been burning gas and producing pollution known to be responsible, at least in part, for the deaths of thousands and thousands of individuals annually. If we need more legislation it should be to produce more hybrids and more clean alternative vehicles such as battery electric vehicles and to reduce the emissions of cars already on the road without exclusions of the worst emitters such as the large SUVs like the Tahoe, Hummer and Excursions.

I appreciate your time and hope that you will move to reject this resolution and encourage your fellow representatives to do likewise. I'm happy to discuss the situation further or even to take you for a ride in my Prius the next time you're in Springfield so you can see, first hand, just how ludicrous this idea is.
Sincerely,
Evan Fusco, MD

An email response I've given to another EAA member:

Written to me:
"As an EAA member and avid cyclist, I was pleased to learn about the bill pending for all vehicles to emit a minimum amount of noise. I believe your are right that all drivers must take responsibility to be aware of everything around them. But too many drivers are not, killing some 40,000 people in the US every year.

I am married with three children, and I too would have been killed many times over if not for my hearing of vehicles and estimating their speed and proximity with out seeing them. Thank you for listening."

My response:
Thanks for writing.

As far as I understand it, this bill is not about creating a minimum noise level for *all* cars. Only for EVs, FCVs and hybrids - the cars that are considered "silent" at low speed. The reality of the situation is that if it were not for noisy gas cars, I could easily hear EVs and hybrids and bicycles around me. To put this another way, in my quiet neighborhood, when there are no gas cars driving by, I can hear our EV coming home before it rounds the corner three houses away. These cars are NOT silent. They are just far less noisy than most gas cars. Couple this with the fact that over 20,000 people in the US die just from the exhaust of those noisy cars, and I do think the bill is almost criminally miss-directed. The best way to save lives is to get cars off the road. If we must have cars, then we need to at least get the loud, polluting ones off the road. Adding noise makers doesn't even put a dent in the real problem.

You mention that 40,000 people are killed every year. You don't say what kills them, but I guess you are talking about the number that are killed in car-related incidents. Some subset of that statistic is pedestrians being being hit by cars, I'm sure. And that means that the pedestrians are being hit by cars that make noise with gasoline engines. So I'm still not clear on how adding noise to our quiet cars will make them safer, or reduce this number. The only real solution is awareness. Awareness in the drivers and in anybody near where cars drive. Making the cars louder isn't going to solve it, as your 40,000 number seems to prove.

I am married with a child and a dog. Except for the dog (who is deaf) we are all pedestrians and bicycle riders. I personally ride a bike about 10,000 miles every year. We also own and operate an EV and a Prius. One of the most appealing parts of all of these modes of transportation is the quiet operation; that we are not adding to the noise pollution that creates a constant hum all around us. I'm not sure how you've come to the conclusion that you would have been killed "many times over" if not for the noise of an automobile. But if this is true, then I sincerely hope you can figure out a way to be safer out on the roads. When I ride on country roads, the wind noise past my ears means that I cannot hear even the loudest full-size big-rigs coming up from behind me. I need to be aware of everything around me - having all vehicles make more noise doesn't make me safer. I ride and drive many miles among other cyclists, hybrids, EVs and pedestrians. And the only collision I've been part of was when a pedestrian (sighted with normal hearing) walked into the side of my car while I sat in it parked.

Awareness is the answer. Not noise pollution.

This is the forum's poll on the issue:
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=570

And here is the petition that a forum member started:
http://environment.change.org/petitions/view/vsp_mandate_is_ridiculous

These are the members of the Senate Committee proposing the "Motor Safety Act 2010":

John D. Rockefeller IV (D-WV), Chair, Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee Mark Pryor (D-AR) Barbara Boxer (D-CA) Maria Cantwell (D-WA) Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ) Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) Tom Udall (D-NM) Mark Begich (D-AK)

You can write them, as well as your own senators, by clicking on their links in the Senate Directory Page:
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

Here is the Representative Directory Page to contact your
representatives:
https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml

Here is the National Highway Traffice Safety Association's e-mail page:
http://www.nhtsa.gov/nhtsa-dpmextn/jsp/email/email_nhtsa.jsp

You can contact the National Federation of the Blind by writing to:
pmaurer@nfb.org

Finally, here is Nissan's e-mail page:
http://www.nissanusa.com/apps/contactus

---------------------------

What the Chevy Volt is doing - click

Chesea Sexton sees it as I do - click

The provision - click

--------------------------

In 2013, Legislation is right around the corner:

The proposal requires sounds when the vehicle is stationary but activated.  Has the NRPM shown that there are collisions when the car is just starting and when there are no cars with ICEs nearby also waiting.  (See Critical Operating Scenarios, pp.  88ff of Quiet Vehicles NPRM.pdf)  "The PSEA states that the required safety standard must allow pedestrians 'to reasonably detect a nearby electric or hybrid vehicle in critical operating scenarios including, but not limited to constant speed, accelerating, or decelerating.'"  Constant speed does not include when the car is not moving, so this is an optional condition.

We should argue for Alternative 3 (less sound less often).  "Alternative 3 addresses a set of requirements suggested by several commenters to the NOI, including the Alliance of Automotive Manufacturers, and is consistent with in-use international guidelines such as that of the Japanese Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT)." (Quiet Cars Draft EA.pdf, pp. 17ff.)  See, in particular, Table 2.3 (Op. cit., p. 19) for a comparison of Alternative 1 (no action, precluded by the legislation), Alternative 2 (preferred alternative), and Alternative 3 (less sound less often alternative).

Bloviating on why there shouldn't be any sound isn't going to cut it.  Making official comments within 60 days of publication can actually make a difference.

You may submit comments to the docket number identified in the heading of this document by any of the following methods:
* Federal eRulemaking Portal: go to http://www.regulations.gov. Follow the online instructions for submitting comments.
* Mail: Docket Management Facility, M-30, U.S. Department of Transportation, West Building, Ground Floor, Rm. W12-140, 1200 New Jersey Avenue, S.E., Washington, D.C. 20590.
3
* Hand Delivery or Courier: West Building Ground Floor, Room W12-140, 1200 New Jersey Avenue, S.E., between 9 am and 5 pm Eastern Time, Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays.
* Fax: (202) 493-2251.
Regardless of how you submit your comments, you should mention the docket number of this document.

Reference Docket No. NHTSA-2011-0148

There is no need for this legislation.

If a blind pedestrian is afraid of the dangers that cars pose to them, those effected individuals should be the ones to take appropriate precaution. Drivers are not blind, and they are the ones tasked with seeing obstacles, and with not hitting anybody. The more conspicuous (and predictable!) a pedestrian is, the safer that pedestrian is from being hit by the driver of a car – even if the car can be seen or heard.

Instead of polluting the environment with even more sound, we should insist that any vulnerable pedestrian be proactive in becoming more conspicuous for their own safety. Wearing day-glow clothing, a reflective vest and a flashing light would do more to ensure their safety around automobile drivers than any sound that a car could emit. Bicyclists employ these tools by choice. They have learned that even if an oncoming car can be seen or heard, being seen and avoided by the driver of that car is what keeps cyclists from harm. Blind pedestrians should make the effort to ensure their own safety – instead of requiring everybody else to accommodate their fears with a “solution” that has no demonstrated safety benefit. The more we transfer the responsibility to others for our safety, the less safe we are.

A little  levity?

I declare my car to be my personal weapon, a gun of a sort.

As such, I don't have to register it, I don't have to pass a test to drive it, I don't have to carry liability insurance for it and I definitely don't have to install a noise making device on it.

Click for EVnut.com_home page