There is nothing crazy about it. There have already been accidents because the victim did not hear the electric car that hit him. With electric automobiles set to explode in popularity, this problem is going to grow exponentially unless something is done to mitigate it.

I know that some of you who think that the deaf and blind who are injured or killed have only themselves to blame. Others like 1c3d0g believe that we should reverse our decades long National policy to ensure that those with disabilities lead independent lives. However, this is not just an issue for the disabled.

Those of us who are sighted do have hearing as sensitive as the blind. Even our sight is limited to a field of view of bit less than 180°. No one is blinder than each of us to the >180° outside our field of view. It is worse if we stoop to tie a shoe or pick-up a dropped possession.

Complaints that the proposed law would cause noise pollution is unfounded and silly. Current law requires that trucks have warning beepers when driven in reverse. Since the advent of vehicular motion, we have always had audible warnings of approaching vehicles, be they the squeak of an ox cart, the clop of shoed horse, or the muzzled engine of a Cadillac. The sound need not be as loud as the footsteps of a woman in high heels walking down the hall.

400, that was friggin funny.

I think they ought to make every Prius or any other fancy golf cart like it play ice-cream-truck music. Inside the car AND out to punish the driver for being such a putz.

I’m interested to know what findings this study will have. Will it be completely biased for the blind and recommend some ridiculously high level to ensure everyone’s safety, or will it just be a reasonable audio level that’d you’d expect from a lightweight 4cyl? In either case, how do you all think they’d most likely achieve the minimum level? Some sort of speaker tacked on or would they just make the engine itself louder? Some sort of side vent system so the audio escapes the engine compartment more easily? Or we could all tack megaphones on our roofs and play ice cream truck songs. Sorry Billy, no King Cone for you today, its just some lady in a Prius running over another blind man.

Anyone who has ever had a bicycle will know what I’m talking about.

They can’t look both ways. In fact, they can’t even look one way. That’s what being blind means.

No. 4. jdasch1 wrote … good god, when will congress and the government do something really worth writing about.

There is a blind school in my neighborhood. We have a large number of students on our streets who are learning how to fend for themselves. In the last 20 years of her life, my grandmother suffered blindness due to cataracts. If it is all the same to you, I will forgive Congress its transgression of trying to ensure the safety of the students in my neighborhood and of old women like my grandmother.