who can run down the most blind pedestrians.
Fabulous idea. There has to be an easy way to add a system to the car that would give audible warnings to others. It should be louder than traffic. Also it should be easily accessible by the driver. Perhaps a button or even padded area on the steering wheel that the driver could easily reach. Then by some magical means, or by electricity, or maybe engine vacuum when the button that gets pushed goes to a device that makes sound to alert pedestrians of the approaching car.
It seems like a lot of complicated stuff, but I’m sure it could be worked out. We could name it after a wind instrument, like a flute, or clarinet, or…
hmmm… then there also should be an industrial standard for this button so it can be understood in all languages. Please bare with me, but I think this may catch on as a symbol that would produce an audible warning.
I used to live in a city where all of the crosswalks were equipped with those chirping things to let blind people know when it was safe to cross.
… I was going to say, wouldn’t it be cheaper to install more of those? Then it dawned on me that the government would have to pay for that, versus them passing the buck off to citizens.
Do you have any idea how much this would add to the cost of a car? This would never work.
Active vs passive is not the same thing.
Can you put a price on safety? I almost hit a blind person the other day trying to cross the 400. I had to push in my clutch and rev my engine, locked up the e-brake and still couldn’t get his attention.
Finally I stuck my head out the window and at the top of my lungs yelled the first thing that came to my mind.
“BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP.”
I am putting a patent on that, BTW.
whistle tip FTW.
first too loud, now too quiet, sigh
What about Helen Keller, did she get killed by a car? Holy crap, We may be getting another new Governor because Patterson got mowed down by a Chevy Volt. Don’t seeing eye dogs look both ways before crossing the street?
I can’t see you, make some noise, NY needs the income!!!
Some interesting reading:
http://www.nfb.org/nfb/NewsBot.asp?MODE=VIEW&ID=150
http://www.nfb.org/nfb/NewsBot.asp?MODE=VIEW&ID=222
The tests – admittedly unscientific – involved people standing in parking lots or on sidewalks who were asked to signal when they heard several different hybrid models drive by.
“People were making comments like, ‘When are they going to start the test?’ And it would turn out that the vehicle had already done two or three laps around the parking lot,” Stein said.
This is from blind people who have developed their sense of hearing to the point that they can safely cross streets where conventional engine vehicles operate.
It’s such a minor thing to address I don’t see why everyone is being such a bunch of pricks about it. I’m sure an automotive engineer could come up with a solution that would add no more than $50 to the cost of a 20k hybrid car.