Hybrids a hazard to the blind?

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Tideland Prius @ Oct 6 2007, 06:28 PM) [snapback]522233[/snapback]</div>

Hi TP and Antares,

Antares when are you going to get em to put a 50 yard following distance automatic brake on EVERY SUV ever made, or to be made! You go! (end ironic comment)

I have known blind people, and gotten along with them. But, social engineering is a bad idea, with very many bad reprecussions. And this stuff is nothing less.

Blind people like to think that every thing that happens to them, does not happen to everybody else. Which is ABSOLUTELY a consequence of their physical reality. Communicate with blind people and tell them its not only them that has to deal with very similar stuff. And they will understand, and not take the circumstance as an unfair consequence of being blind. There are many people who die each day that would not have if they were blind. Human eye-sight is not perfect. Optical illusions can confuse and cause death too.

The only person I ever came close to hitting was on a cell phone, her hand blocked her vision of my approaching car, and it was only my horn - loud and strong - that stopped here stepping in front of me. Any standard car, with the driver lifting his foot from the throttle, in a defensive driving action (as drivers are trained to do - to be ready to hit the brakes) would have had the same thing happen. As the engine would have went silent in comparison to the tire noise, and sound just like a Prius.

 

I still think playing cards in the wheel spokes is the best suggestion yet.

 

I think the cowbell is the best suggestion. There is even a spot already designed for it:

Pop out the circular cover on the front bumper and install the tow hook that Toyota provides in the rear cargo tray. Now you have a location to hang the cowbell. :lol:

 

Playing cards on the steering wheel would distract the driver from seeing even sighted pedestrians so everyone has an equal chance of being hit.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(bwilson4web @ Oct 6 2007, 11:44 AM) [snapback]522199[/snapback]</div>

Bob clearly has the best ideal solution, and it will have the added benefit of everyone pulling the to right to let us pass and run through red lights, use wrong way lanes if we need to, etc.

To be safe, we will also need one of those transmittors that turns lights green for other emergency vehicles, so tha we can keep our running through red lights down to a minimum.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(dogfriend @ Oct 8 2007, 10:20 AM) [snapback]522778[/snapback]</div>

And seriously. We ALWAYS need more cowbell.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Stev0 @ Oct 6 2007, 09:04 AM) [snapback]522170[/snapback]</div>

Then why the hell does she now HATE hybrids if it was an EV that about did her in?

I have been "nearly plowed into" by gas cars more times than I can count. Far more than EVs.. and I'm around plenty of EVs. Hmmm, and I do hate gas cars... so I guess I don't have a point here.

 

Hey, guess what? Just how topical is this?

I've just been asked to help with this problem. And I've already responded with the 50c solution that we know works - the driver-operated warble tone that came from the factory on the EV1 and now on the Vectrix.

>I'm writing on behalf of a team of stanford graduate students
>interested in the potential problem of electric and hybrid vehicles
>being too quiet. Please don't get us wrong, we all of fervently
>support moving away from petroleum and biofuel based vehicles, but
>think that the silent nature of vehicles with electric motors may
>present a safety problem as an aggregate.
>
>We are interested in developing a sound-emitting device for
>electric/hybrid/fuel cell vehicles that would recapitulate and
>improve on the acoustic cues that we are all used to hearing. The
>goal is to generate sounds that are scientifically tested, safe and
>with low-noise pollution. We would love the opportunity to meet
>with you and learn about what you are doing and maybe get some
>practical advice?

 

And how come blind folks haven't hated the 100's of thousands of NEV's that have been mowing over blid folks for decades & decades. Obviously they thought all those golf carts had hemi's

 

They could just put the reverse beeper on the outside (where, if anywhere, it belongs), instead of the inside...that probably would do the trick...

I must be over-thinking this.

 

If they ever pass a law requiring that a noise maker be added to hybrids, I'm going to install a cowbell on the tow hook and a set of steer horns on the hood. YeeeeHaw! :lol:

 

What about we all put tyres on our Prius cars, I have noticed tyres make noise on the pavement. Around places vision impared people tent to be in larger number, like institutes for blind people and some colleges noisier surface treatments can be used. Has anyone else noticed that even petrol cars are very quiet when slowing down? Most of the noise is from fans, which are electric these days so don't run all the time, and the exhaust, which points to the rear.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(patsparks @ Oct 16 2007, 06:46 PM) [snapback]526600[/snapback]</div>

That's a GREAT idea, IMHO.

I was thinking more like, clothes-pinning some old playing cards to the wheels of my car, to get that motorcycle sound...
[laughing]

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(darelldd @ Oct 16 2007, 02:13 PM) [snapback]526424[/snapback]</div>

Hi Darreldd,

How much I think this is a such a bunch of baloney, I will still make this comment. A warble tone is a poor choice, because it causes a delay in the audible sense of velocity and relative position. Warbles can confuse the listener as the true Doepler shift is masked from cognition for a few cycles of the warble.

Also think when you have 10 or 20 silent cars with warbles running. They are all the same high/low frequency and rate of tone change. Which would be a total confusion for the listener. Pulling out all the different types of engines and tires sounds is what they do now.

Beepers have a delay in cognition as well, as this turns the data into a sampled situation, which anybody who has done any control dynamics with computers knows is a not a good idea unless one can increase the sample rate. Say a 1 KHz pulse rate of 10 KHz pulses sin pulses.

A better solution would be an ultrasonic emitter on the vehicle, with ultrasonic stereo down converters for the blind. Might false trigger some of these back-up sensors on the big SUV's though. There is also those Ultrasound head-sets that you walk under at various record stores. But every one on the sidwalk would hear it too, let alone the dog torture. Range of Ultrasound is limited too.

Might need to go to encoded IR emiters and audible direction head set for the sight impaired. That is right up your alley with those LED things you do, right ? Using a PRBS encoding might have advantage as a positive way to identify the emitter as a vehicle, and encode a unique ID. But I am not a digital modulation guru.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(donee @ Oct 16 2007, 07:23 PM) [snapback]526614[/snapback]</div>

Or, we could just go with the clothespin/playing card idea...


Maybe we could all just toot our horns every few seconds or so, any time our car is in motion...?

 

How about a bumper sticker written in braille that states "Warning! This vehicle moves without making a sound". (I'm sure that the lawyers in my insurance company would give me an additional discount.)

Keith

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Tech_Guy @ Oct 16 2007, 06:09 PM) [snapback]526631[/snapback]</div>

I really like this idea.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Pinto Girl @ Oct 16 2007, 05:05 PM) [snapback]526609[/snapback]</div>

Be serious Natalie! The clothes pins would fall off. The playing cards have to be clamped into slots to hold them firmly in place, and replaced as they wear out, either manually (for cheap EVs like my Xebra) or automatically (for expensive ones like the Tesla Roadster.

The Prius, being a mid-priced car with expensive-car features, would have the automatic renewal of cards: Put a whole pack in the cannister when you change your oil, and they'd be dispensed as needed.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Stev0 @ Oct 6 2007, 12:04 PM) [snapback]522170[/snapback]</div>

If she was hit I am sure she would know and be upset. But she was nearly hit so how did she know that it even happened, that it was an EV and not just a very quiet car with radiator fan off etc. Its very hard to hear some cars in low speed and I indeed have heard more tire noise from some cars then engine noise in parking lots. The civic non hybrid is nearly silent in a parking lot.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(hampdenwireless @ Oct 21 2007, 11:14 AM) [snapback]528431[/snapback]</div>

Hi hamdenwireless,

That could be a good solution. Have the blind wear a transmitter with a specific code. Then any car that receives it just turns on its cooling fans. A forward looking antenna on the car would minimize the fan on-time. Very simple. All cars could have this.

The problem with this idea is that until all cars have it, the blind could not trust the system. But at least the cars that do have the system will warn the blind pedestrian.

And to satsify Pinto Girl, we could put the playing card in there so that the fan blades strike it. Not sure how effective the playing cards in the spokes of the Prius would work. As the Prius wheel spokes have blunt edges, and there are only 5 of them (versus the 30 or so piano wire spokes on a bicycle).