national Federation for the Blind vs Prius

a few weeks ago i was standing next to a jaquar.
new model
i did not hear the ICE start.. and then i drove away .. i was suprised because i did not hear it run....

 

Hi All,

I have been a steady negative commentor towards any kind of regulation based on the Prius being a quiet car. Because that is not the issue. The issue is TOO MUCH vehicle noise. I almost got run over by an SUV about 1 hour ago while I was on foot - BECAUSE OF TOO MUCH VEHICLE NOISE. The SUV was coasting around a blind corner near a busy road, while I looked for traffic around the blind corner the other way. I stepped into the street, and then looked his way, and the thing was coming right at me. I did not hear it because it was making the same noise as all the other cars on the street. It was one of these real big Chevy SUVs. The guy was pulling into the oncoming lane, so he did not have to slow down, and to coast around a car parked on the narrow street in his lane. Bastard.

 

I just don't see the point!!!!

 

We live in a mobile home park with a 15mph speed limit. All cars are driving slowly and there are no sidewalks so pedestrians are all in the street. There is enough ambient noise in the neighborhood so you can't hear any car unless it is particularly noisy. Our Prius is no more a danger than 80% of the other cars. As far as I know nobody has ever been hit by a car in this neighborhood.

If there is a law it will have to comprehend ambient noise and would have to apply any noise generation equipment to any car model that is below a determined noise level. That would have to include a lot more than PZEV cars.

Hey I have an idea. How about if we mount a horn in the front of the car. We could hide it behind the grill somehow. Then we could run a control wire up to the driver area so we could like filp a switch and beep the horn. Perhaps we could even convince the car manufacturers to say put a button right on the steering wheel. That way if there was someone at risk of being hit by our quiet car we could toot the horn to warn them. Nah I guess we couldn't get that idea to pass Congress. Forget I even suggested it.

John

 

Bob Wilson is our point man on this issue. He calls it the 'Bell the Hybrid' legislation. The existing thread is here.

I thought I'd seen Bob produce some actual accident statistics that showed the Prius as no more, and not particularly less, likely to be involved in accidents than any other vehicle. Can't find them at the moment.

 

I'm sure the data will be inconclusive and this bill will die. Lol at Specter, what a big lol. Go retire instead of switching parties.

 

We have Dr. Christopher Hogan to thank for the detailed statistics. I included his report in my final submission to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (see attached.) Dr. Hogan did the heavy lifting and I have been using his data like a flaming torch in my attempts to fight of this monster.

Feel free to share with editors (and reporters) where they can read what happened in 2008 to the grandfather of this bill:

www.regulations.gov
search: NHTSA-2008-0108-0020
(opposition research)

Bob Wilson