Now I won’t fault folks for investing in a vehicle that is a gas miser like the Toyota Prius. Personally, I’ll stick with my 30mpg VW. Still, one if the latest gripes about the car involves how quiet it is when it is simply running on batteries. This presents a problem for the blind who simply cannot see it coming.
So groups are calling for noisemakers on the cars, or some way to alert blind pedestrians. Now I can understand the dangers of something that makes no noise to the blind. Street signs, trees, cyclists, curbs, etc… The article below makes a point of quoting the number of pedestrians killed in 2005. Big deal. I doubt enough of them were wasted by quiet cars to warrant this crap.
If anything, this is nothing more than another exploitative special interest group trying to cash in on the popularity of hybrid technology.