"Bell the Hybrid" - 111th Congress

The current efforts to legislate noise makers on hybrids are H.R. 734 and S. 841. Both bills are flawed because they legislate one one solution:

"SEC. 3. Findings.

(8) ... require that vehicles emit a minimum level of sound designed to alert ll pedestrians, especially bind pedestrians, to the presence of such vehicles."
​

If they were changed to:

"SEC. 3. Findings.

(8) ... require that vehicles use any technical system that may include emitting a minimum level of sound designed to alert ll pedestrians, especially bind pedestrians, to the presence of such vehicles and reduce all accidents."​

It would fix the legislation so it would address the real problem, pedestrian and accident deaths, and uses the full might or our intellect and skills. But sound has been tried for 100 years and continues to fail.

There are more more errors in these bills but the "Finding" are what directs the allowed solution. However, the inflated claims in the bills and by their advocates leave them vulnerable to the facts and data ... the truth. That is the most powerful argument of all ... if we share it.

The most frequent and inflated claim is our hybrids are deadly but the facts and data show otherwise:

Prius Fatalities 2001-2007
​

The goal is to take any claims of "deadly" and "fatal" away from the honorable competition. What would help would be to make sure this URL is shared with reporters or their editors who try to claim our hybrid cars are 'deadly' or 'fatal' to pedestrians. I have no problem with the advocates making fact based claims but any words claiming "fatal" or "deadly" need to be corrected. There is no evidence of elevated fatalities or deaths associated with our Prius, 2/3ds of all hybrids on the road.

An approach would be to make sure this URL shows up in as many web pages, blogs and web-based comments as possible. This increases the Google ranking ... increasing the probability of a Google hit on a search. Google can be 'our friend.'

I don't look forward to this by any stretch of the imagination. I would rather take instruments to our Prius, soldering iron and boards. Product improvement is a heck of a lot more interesting but in this case, our Congress, our representatives, are about to legislate a mistake and legislate a placebo.

Since their invention, automobiles have made noise and killed pedestrians. We have run this experiment for over 100 years and the results are the same. Adding noise makers to cars is running the same, deadly experiment and expecting a different result ... it is insanity to legislate the same experiment and expect a different result.

This legislation could bring new technology, accident avoidance systems, and take a bite out of both pedestrian deaths, 4,200 per year, and car-to-car accidents. That is the direction legislation needs to go ... not legislating the same more noise that has failed so many dead pedestrians for the past 100 years and continues to fail today.

Bob Wilson

ps. Christopher Hogan did the initial analysis in 2008 for which we owe a great debt of gratitude. I'm not trying to stand in his shoes as much as take some of the heat ... someone has to do it. It is my hope he may post his 2008 report with a URL ... misery loves company.

 

And a 'land shark' chimes in:

New York Personal Injury Lawyer Warns Pedestrians To Watch For Quieter Hybrid Vehicles

Ambulance chasers, start your engines.

Bob Wilson

 

WHEN NUMBERS MAKE NO SENSE

"Incident of Pedestrian and Bicyclist Crashes by Hybrid Electric Passenger Vehicles," DOT HS 811 204, Sept. 2009:

I recently learned the data table of HEVs does NOT include the Corolla and this sentence is in error.

Recently, I've been looking at the Prius fleet data and fatal accidents for the USA. But something about the HEV counts didn't make sense for this 12 State data. Looking at "Traffic Safety Facts 2007 Data", DOT HS 810 993, table 2 we have a column titled "Registered Motor Vehicles (Thousands)" that shows the number by year, 2000-2007. So I put this table together:

	Column 1	Column 2	Column 3	Column 4	Column 5	Column 6	Column 7	Column 8	Column 9
0	year	USA vehicles	Prius sales	Prius total	Prius %
1	2000	217	028	000	5	562	5	562	0.003%
2	2001	221	230	000	15	556	21	118	0.010%
3	2002	225	685	000	20	119	41	237	0.018%
4	2003	230	633	000	24	627	65	864	0.029%
5	2004	237	949	000	53	991	119	855	0.050%
6	2005	245	628	000	107	897	227	752	0.093%
7	2006	251	423	000	106	971	334	723	0.133%
8	2007	257	708	000	181	221	515	944	0.200%
9
10		ICE Vehicles		HEV vehicles	% HEV
11		559	703		8	387	1.476%
12
13					ratio
14					7.37

.
Note that this is Prius sales and does not include any Prius losses, ~3%, per year, worst case.

This data suggests that if the Prius were the only hybrid, they would be more than seven times more accident prone than ordinary ICE vehicles. Now one obvious fact is this report cherry picked the reference vehicles, they did not include all vehicle accidents. So the smaller set of 'reference' vehicles makes the hybrids in that set seem more accident prone.

I looked at the December 2007 distribution of sales of selected models from the "Dashboard" report:

	Column 1	Column 2	Column 3	Column 4
0	model	sales	percent
1	Toyota Corolla	0	0%
2	Toyota Camry	4	959	22.0%
3	Toyota Prius	14	212	63.0%
4	Honda Civic	3	223	14.3%
5	Honda Accord	150	0.7%
6	Total	22	544	100%

.
Now the following is 'back of the envelope' numbers but if we take the Prius as a general index of total hybrid sales:

1.59*.63 = 100.2% of all hybrids in study
1.59*.002 = 0.32% of fleet percentage that are hybrids

1.476% / 0.32% = 4.612 times more likely to have a hybrid in an incident
​

Again, this is compared to the total number of vehicles, not the cherry picked, subset. If our hybrids are more than four times more likely to be involved in an accident, that would be terrible. Folks, something isn't right in the HEV accident numbers in this report. You don't suppose that they actually counted some of the Corollas as a hybrid?

I'm thinking about submitting an FOIA request to have to the "8,387 HEVs and 559,703 ICE" broken out by the types of vehicles. If the Corolla count in "HEVs" comes out zero, no problem. But I'm also curious about the non-ICE vehicle distribution. The reason is we can look at these ratios, they are large numbers, and using absolute vehicle counts, begin to understand how this set of vehicles compares to the total fleet numbers. Actually, the FOIA can also ask, "What was the total count of all vehicle accidents in the 12 State data that provided useful VINs?"

Bob Wilson

 

I just got my C-SPAN notice:

C-SPAN Daily Alert
Programming Information for Wed. 10/28 - Thurs. 10/29, 2009

Washington Journal Highlights

* Ray LaHood, Transportation Secretary
* Daniel Yergin, Author, “The Prizeâ€
* Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, (D-NH)
* Sen. Mike Crapo, (R-ID)
* Stephen Gandel, Time Magazine, Senior Economic Writer

​

BACKGROUND:

• Former representative Ray LaHood was a cosponsor for the original "Bell the Hybrid" act.
• Recently the NHTSA came out with the comparison study "Incident of Pedestrian and Bicyclist Crashes by Hybrid Electric Passenger Vehicles" (DOT HS 811 204), which is being misquoted when someone claims hybrids are twice as dangerous as ordinary cars.
  • There is no vehicle count in the report by state so no one knows what the actual risk of a Prius is versus any of the gas vehicles ... it is a shape, a profile of accidents, not an absolute risk by type of vehicle. Ask him, "How many accidents per hybrid car or hybrid car mile?" He won't have an answer or if he does, it is likely 'made up.'
• There is the Toyota floor mat business, a hot and popular topic.
• Then there is my analysis of Prius Fatal Accidents showing half the rate compared to the NHTSA published averages per vehicle per 100 million miles using the Fatality Accident Reporting System (FARS.)

So those that have a little time to spend on C-SPAN Thursday morning, it might be fun. <grins> ... Darn, I'll have to get a Twitter account too! <GRRRRRR>

Bob Wilson

 

It wasn't until I checked the C-SPAN program before "Morning Journal" that I realized that 'texting' and other distractions while driving would be the topic. This is important in its own right so it didn't make sense to call-in. Yet a motorcyclist called in against helmet laws and another caller against mandatory seat-belts.

I don't like to 'ambush' people any more than I appreciate being ambushed. Calling in about "Bell the Hybrid" was not appropriate this morning ... but I did have the numbers on 'speed dial.'

Bob Wilson

 

There has been a spat of activity on HR 734 with the addition of more cosponsors, now 155. This is what I would expect when action on a bill is likely to come up. Also, given the recent 'run away car' press, no doubt it is stirring up interest in a bill to "Bell the Hybrid" as giving the appearance of 'doing something.'

Keep your powder dry but a letter to your representative is a good idea and a draft for your local news paper and broadcast stations.

Bob Wilson