May8
When legislation was introduced into the U.S. House of Representatives earlier this year to mandate a minimum sound level for hybrid and electric vehicles, we have to admit we thought it was a little on the silly side. But after the events of last weekend, it doesn't sound so far fetched. On Sunday, and eight-year old boy was hit while riding his bike by a Toyota Prius because he couldn't hear the vehicle approaching.
Owen Erickson emerged from the accident with only minor bumps and bruises, but did end up on the hood of the Prius. Erickson was at fault for the accident — as he he rode his bike into the path of the vehicle — but his mother did put some of the blame on the hybrid as it was operating in silent EV mode.
It is believed that this is one of the first accident in the U.S. that can be linked to a hybrid's silent operation and gives credence to the bill currently in U.S. House of Representatives.
Toyota has yet to comment on the legislation but acknowledges that the situation needs to be looked at. "We do have to step back and take a look," John Hanson, Toyota's national manager of environmental, safety and quality communications, told KARE 11 News, an NBC affiliate.
So far Fisker — maker of the upcoming Karma Hybrid — is the only automaker to address the need of a minimum sound level for hybrids.
seriously….of course an 8 year old boy will put the blame on anything but himself….
this is how we clean our environment of 8 year old boys
Exactly, you never hear stories about deaf people getting nerfed.
Well…you can blame just about everthing on anything.
this is so dumb.
The whole thing is ridiculous, this is just the press milking the situation for all it is worth for the sake of this silly sound legislation. For one the mom is a hack for not teaching her son to look both ways before crossing the street, and two the kid is stupid enough to TRY and cross the street without looking both ways. The silent operation of hybrids is a slightly higher risk I agree but I do not think it is high enough to necessitate sound laws. There is a simple operating principle for pedestrian travel and that is to look both ways before entering a street; I don't care if the car in question is painted in urban digital camo and runs quieter than a mouse, anyone who cannot see a 3000-4000 pound hunk of metal traveling down a paved street on big rubber tires may very well deserve to be hit for their stupidity and if you don't claim to be stupid and this happens to you maybe get your eyes checked out.
This is the only way Prius' can really contribute to reducing overall emissions anyway — by killing unsuspecting humans!!
I feel for the kid, but this is sketchy journalism at best.
"Erickson was at fault for the accident — as he he rode his bike into the path of the vehicle — but his mother did put some of the blame on the hybrid as it was operating in silent EV mode."
That's basically saying "This has nothing to do with the car being a hybrid, but since it's a hybrid and we've been having this talk then we'll insinuate it."
I personally don't care either way if minimal sound levels happen or not (leaning towards not though), but I just didn't like the way that was written.
As an aside, has anyone ever been around a "silent" Prius in motion? They still make plenty of noise from the tires spinning. You have to be going REALLY slow on REALLY smooth pavement to sneak up on someone; the only place I could do it was in the mechanic's garage at the Toyota dealership I worked at.
Pedestrians and cyclists will have to adapt to the lower noise levels from LEV's. You can no longer just trust your ears.
was he playing his ipod while biking like most 8 yr olds?
The Ninja Prius strikes again!!!
Now the lawsuits come out. It's a sue-happy world we're living in people.
Have you been able to "trust your ears" when it comes to cars the past 10 years or so anyways?
Most new cars, even the gasoline-powered ones, are damn near silent at low speeds. Just stand in a parking lot and let a Prius go by followed by any late-model vehicle. They both make about the same amount of noise, which is to say they both make very little at all. It's pretty easy thesedays to walk up to a new car and not even know whether it's idling or not at first.
OOOO TOYOTA SUCKKKKKKKKS
they should make fart can exhausts for these and make the electric motor sound like the delorian in back to the future
As usual the whoremother blames someone else. When parents agree to take responsilibity for their stupid kids, we'll have a more responsible populace. Until then, faggoty 8-year olds galore.
BTW, any decent car cruising a neighborhood street is hard to hear. It's not like a Camry or Accord makes any noise cruising at 25 (not accelerating)
^ Haha! That's the solution right there A4! How sweet would that be??
this is why we have survival of the fittest
I object!
When I hit him, I was on gas power, and he woulda heard me if he wasn't listening to the Devil's music!
Now when I backed up ove him……I have to admit…….. I was in EC Mode, so…..
DrFill
I sure am glad it was a Toyota that injured someone and not a GM.
I'm sure (yeah right) that people will slowly relearn to look both ways and listen.
At age eight is was paranoid about being hit by a car. Of course TV was much more educational back then. Stunt involving being hit by cars were much more graphic, fast, and violent. We need more of that. Just to show them it is not okay to be roadkill.
We need to put the rational fear of the bumper back into pedestrians and especially children, who often have little recourse but to play in the street. I think many younger folks have forgotten that cars can hurt you.
Look and listen. I think that brat ran out into the street like a squirrel but got hit like a deer.
I don't like electric cars or hybrids but I hate knee-jerk legislation even more! One thing happens so now there needs to be a law passed no matter how STUPID!
In other news, Toyota engineers have developed an accessory bracket to hold a playing card against the spokes of a Prius's rear wheel.
CAFE hurt this boy.
oh who gives a shit about some worthless little 8yr old who doesn't pay attention when crossing the street. This is just some pathetic ploy by the boys parents to sue a big car company, but in the end the greedy parents will get nothing and end up with crippling legal costs. Little kids who don't pay attention when crossing the street and get hit by cars is just natural selection. Those who are smart and strong continue to survive, the stupid end up in the grave, no longer consuming resources intended for those who deserve it.
^ Like dead cops that fuck with the innocent, those resources.
I love you too iFuck400horses
I'm sorry, there is no debate.
Don't play in traffic, and look for cars before you cross the street. Minimum sound levels my ass.
i totally agree…
1. pedestrians do take part in traffic, so they have to take all necessary care.
2. an 8 yo who is not totally retarded should be able to understand #1. if he's either retarded or not able to fullfill #1, what the h*ck was he doin on the street without his mom or anyone who would watch over him?
if he was mentally and physically able to watch over himself, but didnt know how to… well, mom, you'd better have given some effort into teaching ur kid how to take care, or NOT let him play on the street.
3. cars are too silent, though… ever drove a kinda new car on a parking lot in first, almost idling? ever faced people walking in front of you who would not notice theres a car behind them, then turning around, getting scared and then yelling at you, because you were sneaking up on them with you car from silent hell?
*d'oh*
hybrids are a gimmick. Who cares if some boy was playing on the road and wasn't paying attention??
A set of Flowmasters could fix that.
All Priuses should come factory equipped with 14" Subs and a Hip-hop mix on constant loop.
Huh, what?
what i also don't get is the driver of the car, was he not looking at the road also? if he saw some little boy coming towards his direction how come he didn't honk his horn? or was that running on silent mode also?
and for the kid- i'm sure if he couldn't "hear" the car, i know he has those 2 little things in his head called EYES- and i'm sure he could tell if a car was moving towards him, or away- unless again as someone stated, kid is just retarded (dee dee dee)
and for the mother trying to sue because the car was TOO quiet, come on- then alot of people in the US should sue when i see some guy mow people down in his '88 Ford F-250 and sue because the truck was TOOO heavy
this is all driver error- kid error and mother not using a condom error………. next story
save the environment kill the kids
In a world driven mad with sound, sound, and more sound, I am all for very quiet vehicles. Owen probably should have turned the volume on his iPod.
People should get out of the middle of the road.
Toyota needs to contact the experts at Harley Davidson, an AMERICAN company that literally has patents on noise.
{quote} "… we thought it was a little on the silly side."{quote}
Because it IS silly.
{quote}Erickson was at fault for the accident — as he he rode his bike into the path of the vehicle{quote}
The BOY was not paying attention and just rode in front of a car. Has anyone heard of EYES and looking BOTH WAYS?
{quote}but his mother did put some of the blame on the hybrid{quote}
OF COURSE she can't blame her kid for not looking both ways.
{quote}
Whether you all like it or not, you only use two of your senses to detect cars; sight and sound. Lose 50% of that, and it will just be more difficult.
My daughter is partially deaf and I see how hard it is for her to rely on vision alone to check for dangers of traffic. That's part of dealing with that hearing loss. But without sound, we'll all be deaf to the dangers. I don't think you all understand how much you use your hearing. Crank up your iPod so you can't hear anything else and go biking on a winding road with sporadic traffic; I'll bet within a month you'll have at least one close call….
I remember when Denver here got the lightrail. Lots of accidents because they're pretty quiet and apparently a lot of folks didn't see a freakin slow moving train heading toward them. Now they've added a lot of warning stobes and audible signals to warn people it's coming. Hearing is important to warn you of things around you. Minimum noise isn't a bad thing.
Dude, it's the PARENTS responsibility to watch their kids and teach them not to play in the street. If you don't know what your 8 year old is doing, then you don't need to be raising kids. Period. How do you know the driver of this car wasn't obeying the traffic laws and that this kid just didn't run out in front of him at the last second?
All you know it alls who think minimum noise is a stupid idea…. I kinda hope one of you gets flung over the hood of something you didn't hear…. then you'd be singing a different tune.
Noise is good… why do you think motorcyclists want loud bikes?
^^^ You must be one of the retards that doesn't LOOK before you cross the street. I'd love to run your @$$ over. That kid is lucky I didn't hit him, I would have got out, and if he was still alive, I'd smack his little @$$ and tell him to look before crossing the street next time.
ok i seriously doubt this kid was 'deaf' to begin with, since i'm sure his momma would have mentioned it- and if your child is 'deaf' i doubt you'd let that child of yours play in the street with passing cars unsupervised, that would be poor parenting- this kid didn't watch where he was going or what he was doing- i'm sure the angry monkey in his closet made him play in the street with on coming traffic
This isn't the first time that the silent nature of hybrids/electrics has been brought up in this context and not just in "sue-happy" America.
Who really cares… they were both at fault. Unfortunately one was an eight year old boy and the other was an adult. Should the kid have been taught to pay more attention - yes. But I'm also sure if Mr. Greenie-Weenie Enviro-hippie wasn't yacking on his phone and actually paying more attention to the road like he should have been, the entire thing could have been avoided.
Besides… I didn't read anywhere that the parents were looking to sue Toy-ota.. and she did at least put some of the blame on her kid - which is more than a lot of parents will do these days. So as far as I can see…. this is a non-story.
Eh, I think everyone is overreacting. I mean the Prius has been for sale since 1997 and we've seem to have avoided a child massacre due to ultra silent hybrids so far.
This is ridiculous! So now we have to endure the sound of f*cking vacuum cleaners just because some dorks can't look both sides before crossing the streets?!?
Well then, if it's one of the first incidents of this sort of accident, then we shouldn't be worrying now, should we?
This is a really minor article though, doesn't even sound like this would be published locally. How'd she even contact a serious publisher/journalist about something as minor as this?
Hey, your right, that kid is spewing CO2.
Kill all air-polluters.
I did'nt know anyone drove one of these fast enough to hurt someone.
Trooper1 is a stupid fag wannabe.