"Quiet" cars making noise again...

This very day - I walked up to a blind corner that hid an approaching quiet car. I clearly heard it approaching. Even though I knew the quiet car approached - it still startled me (maybe too much coffee today) when it finally came into sight. I never stepped off the curb. I was never in any real danger. I thought about this thread and realized how some mistake being startled with having a near-death experience. They are not the same thing.
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I've already retro-fitted mine with a noise-making device:

 

Agreed!

And what if said pedestrian is too busy yapping with a friend, texting or has ear buds on? And the group of cyclists riding in a pack rather than in a row, chatting and not paying attention? It works both ways....

I have used the horn to get their attention (granted, the Prius horn does not have the startle and alarm effect I would like), a bit old fashioned but it works.

I pay attention when there are crosswalks because I know I am creeping up and the distracted pedestrian won't hear me and just may step out into my path... same in a parking lot.

On my very snowy walk a few weeks ago the only car my brother and I saw on the road was a Prius - we saw the lights but did not hear it other than the EV mode sounds... and knew what we were dealing with.

Prior to getting my Prius one almost took me out in a parking lot because I didn't hear it...

 

I lived in Brooklyn and worked in Manhattan and one has to be on alert to survive. It is survival of the fittest.

My son calls the city folk "citidiots" but his descriptor was in reference to a relative that took him camping in bear country and did not haul the cooler into a tree after my son said "What about the food?" He was asleep under the stars with the relatives in a tent nearby when the bear came to visit.

The black bear that found the cooler dragged it away, opened it with a claw, enjoyed trail mix and a beer...and left bear slobber all over the rest of my son's beverages...

Citidiots.

 

"Being startled" is something found in the public statements of the Congress critters who pushed this legislation and embedded in various advocacy claims. Lacking empirical data of a hard risk, they were inflating "surprise" into an all but invisible "hazard" and one that has no detectable, fatality risk.

I'll read the full reports this weekend but a preliminary scan reveals the usual practices of those who are trying to advocate an exceptionally weak policy:

• use of easily omitted, risk qualifiers - risk numbers are published with 'qualification text' that limits the application to a subset of all operation. For example, "1.34 times" more likely in "some low speed maneuvers." By omitting the qualifier, our hybrids are 1.34 times more hazardous.
• unrealistic projections - the future is a wonderfully malleable so a projection that in 2016, "20%" of all sales will be hybrid electric vehicles . . . and we've just reached in Dec. 2012 3% . . . a six-fold increase in hybrid sales in just three years.

When I read a 'stinker', I have to print it so I can 'lay it down' and get calm enough before reading more later:

• Quiet_Cars_Draft_EA.pdf
• Quiet_Vehicles_NPRM.pdf

"And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?" Matthew 7-3. This is what drives me to distraction, 4,000 dead pedestrians every year yet thanks to our Congress critters with the collusion of the NHTSA, 2,800 pedestrian collisions are what the NHTSA is wasting time. It is ignoring a serial killer to go after a vandal.

Bob Wilson

 

Bob you're actually over stating their case. 2,800 pedestrian? Why 2,800. Why not 3,500. Where's even the formula to arrive at 2,800 ?? Not being able to show off how the number's formula was derived makes it evident that the critters simply pulled a nice number out of their bung. ... a number that's not to big so as to be unbelievable ... yet not so small as to not be able to justify drama.

Logic follows that if there are 4,000 pedestrian/cyclist versus vehicle injuries per year and that within the 4,000 total you have a subset containing hybrid AND 'plug-in (versus auto) injury/fatalities per year - the % of injuries would represent the % of plug-in's times the total number 4,000. If one factors there are WAY less than 3% of all vehicles in the U.S. that fall within the hybrid/plug-in category, then at best, the "pulled 2,800 out of my bung" number should actually be a grand total of 120 (or much less). But, congress fears someone branding them as insensitive to the "needs" of the disabled. Such branding might go towards them not getting elected next term. So it's safer to protect the 120, rather than the rest of the 4,000.
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I've only scanned the reports but the earlier statistical analysis appeared to be technically correct . . . no obvious errors. However, they were using incredibly small sample sets (any wonder why) so when they combined Polk vehicle registrations with unqualified (aka., true) rates, they got this mote.

I used a different approach based upon vehicle sales and an assumed loss of 3% per year to estimate the population of Prius. Then I used the NHTSA numbers on vehicle miles per year and rates to calculate the Prius-pedestrian fatality rate. Within reasonable confidence, it remains at most half of the USA fleet average. Yet this was not enough to convince my Congress critters.

The NHTSA published reports with 'qualified' text around very narrow, restricted maneuvers. The politicians omitted the 'qualified' text and cited the relative rates of these few, limited maneuvers to 'justify' the law. In effect, the NHTSA wrote the report that could be misquoted by the politicians who lied by omission to pass this bad law. Well it is done.

What this means is every year, another 4,000 pedestrians and cyclists will die and the NHTSA Pharasees and Congress critters will 'wash their hands' like Pontius Pilate did before the death of another.

This law will will have no measurable effect on pedestrian fatalities because the current killer cars already make noise. Adding synthetic noise from our hybrids in the best possible outcome, will make them equally lethal to the killer pickups and SUVs.

Instead of going for in-car technologies of accident avoidance that could save the lives of pedestrians and car drivers and passengers, this 'eye wash' legislation has delayed doing 'the right thing.' And more blood will stain our streets. The Congress and NHTSA might as well have issued 'buffalo shirts' to the blind for all the good it will do.

Bob Wilson

 

I wish Congress would stop this crap of "saving" people with BS stuff like this and focus on passing an actual budget, cutting spending and actually doing what they were hired to do. Come tomorrow, a lot of people are going to see just how bad things are going to get when their paychecks arrived and are smaller than what they were accustomed to.

Put a bell on my hybrid, and I will find and destroy that damned thing.

 

Amen!

It's already quite silly to warn us and shield us from seeing our mfd items while moving!

Enough listening to the lawyers!

Tesla and other manufacturers are not limiting and putting on warnings and alerts. This makes paying for the bells and whistles not desirable... No more bells and whistles please!



Alan.. Sent with Tapatalk 2