Hybrids vs. pedestrians

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Efforts to protect pedestrians by turning up the volume on quiet-running electric and hybrid vehicles are picking up speed in California and elsewhere.

The folks up in Sacramento have sent a bill to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger that (in classic bureaucratic fashion) directs the California Energy Commission to set up a committee to study the issue and report back in one year with recommendations on what, if anything, to do about it.

What’s the beef?

As hybrid and electric vehicles become more numerous — more than 350,000 now cruise California roads — concerns are growing that the blissful silence of the vehicles’ electric motors poses a genuine threat to pedestrians, especially the blind. (See earlier story here.)

Although there apparently are no reported cases of a pedestrian being killed after walking in front of a silent-running hybrid, near misses and minor scrapes are becoming more frequent. According to a story going around Sacto, an unsuspecting Assembly staffer was almost clipped by a hybrid while walking through Capitol parking garage.

Such incidents have led to proposals for adding external noisemaking devices to hybrids so they would alert the blind and just-plain-inattentive pedestrians to their presence. Companies are working on a range of solutions, such as Lotus’ idea to install a waterproof speaker on the front of the car that would project realistic-sounding engine noise.

“There’s been a movement to make vehicles quieter, but we can be victims of our own virtue,” Carrie Cornwell, chief consultant to the Senate House and Transportation Committee. “That could be the case with automobiles if they get too quiet.”

Suggestions to “bell the hybrid” have been met with derision by some (though by no means all) hybrid owners. As one poster at website GreenHybrid put it recently: “Asking tens of thousands of hybrid owners to add noisemakers is burdensome.”

Some environmentalists have even groused that carping about silent running could slow the spread of hybrid vehicles, which are prized for their high gas mileage and low emissions.

“We are in total support of these types of vehicles,” reassures Dan Kysor, who lobbies the Legislature on behalf of the California Council of the Blind. “We just want to mitigate the possible pedestrian safety hazards.”

Kysor, who is blind and gets around with the help of a guide dog, said he’s had several close encounters with hybrids. They’re particularly dangerous when sitting at idle, he said, because the gasoline engine shuts down completely.

“I can sense there’s a big object nearby, but because it’s not making any noise, I can’t tell what it is,” he said.

Kysor said his group wasn’t seeking to mandate anything to automakers. It justs want the state to study the issue. Kysor also said there were options besides adding obnoxious honking or beeping noises. One he heard of that’s being used in Japan — where the current generation of hybrids originated — is a sound system that reproduces the gentle “clip clop” of a horse’s hooves, speeding up or slowing down to match the speed of the car.

Cornwell said no matter what happens, it’s unlikely that the state would require noisemakers to be retrofitted to vehicles already on the road.

Schwarzenegger reportedly hasn’t taken a position on the California bill by state Sen. Alan Lowenthal, a Long Beach Democrat. The committee that the bill would create would include reps from the auto and insurance industries, law enforcement and advocates for the blind. Hybrid owners wouldn’t have a seat at the table.

Other states are also studying the issue, and there are rumblings on the federal level as well. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration held hearings in June, and regulation could be forthcoming.

-- Martin Zimmerman