SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - Electric and hybrid vehicles may be better for the environment, but the California Legislature says they're bad for the blind.

It has passed a bill to ensure that the vehicles make enough noise to be heard by visually impaired people about to cross a street......


http://media.www.bgnews.com/media/storage/paper883/news/2008/08/22/OddNews/Odd-Briefs-3401358.shtml
or http://tinyurl.com/6p6a6p

Are you really surprised? Give California a chance to do something first, no matter how stupid it may turn out to be, and they'll do it every time.

Every electric car I have heard has had a whine that was easy to hear. I think we could probably do with a little less noise pollution in the world.

No amount of noise being emitted by a vehicle will help a blind person if the driver is not paying attention.

The goal should be driver training and instilling an attitude that driving takes precedence over other activities while on the road. If most drivers were more concerned with the task at hand there would be fewer collisions and accidents and such.

What is the solution wrt deaf and blind individuals? Should cars be equiped with vibration mechanisms so that those individuals can feel the car coming along the ground?

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - Electric and hybrid vehicles may be better for the environment, but the California Legislature says they're bad for the blind.

It has passed a bill to ensure that the vehicles make enough noise to be heard by visually impaired people about to cross a street......


OK, I think I have some ideas for the rule makers down there in the land of fruits and nuts. How about these administrative rules to implement this new law...

Every electric vehicle operated in the State of California will be require to:

1. Have an operating beeper device similar to those used on dump trucks when backing up. This device must be operated at all times when the vehicle is in motion.

OR

2. Have a minimum 750 watt sound system installed with at least two 12" thumpers operating at full volume and playing any selection of rap or techno music that the driver chooses. This system must however be operated at least at 95% volume anytime the vehicle is in gear.

OR

3. Must have an exterior speaker system installed and operating whenever the vehicle is in motion which emits at least 115 db of sound simulating any of the following: AA Fuel Dragster, an unmuffled Harley Davidson, an unmuffled 68 Camaro under full acceleration, or Jan and Dean's Little Old Lady From Pasadina played at full volume.

Anyway, I hope this in some small way helps the rocket scientists that run California to work out the implmentation of this new law

I am thinking that we should simply expand on the cards in the spokes of bicycles that we may or may not remember from childhood, by placing democrats ears in the wheel spokes of cars. :p

No matter what kind of "noisemaker" the idiots in CA come up with, if I can hear it from inside the car, I'll rip it out.

When I'm sitting at a stop light in my Ford Explorer, it is close to silent. You certainly couldn't hear it above the normal ambient sound level in a city. Why no mandated noisemakers for silent ICE cars?

Are you really surprised? Give California a chance to do something first, no matter how stupid it may turn out to be, and they'll do it every time.

Every electric car I have heard has had a whine that was easy to hear. I think we could probably do with a little less noise pollution in the world.
No... but it does seem like a strange priority!
We could come with some creative suggestions:

1. auto boombox mode. (OK, everyone hates this idea)
2. deer whistle (for that "go natural" sound)
3. baseball card on spokes sound (my personal favorite) ..either "virtual" or "actual". Would be really nice in a crowded parking lot. A low speed "tick-tick-tick" would be awesome!

Cheers!

Let's be fair. All people riding bikes, electric bikes, walkers, electric trains, quiet cars, hybrids that turn off the engine, cars that enter an area (like a city) that has an outside noise level greater than 20 percent what the ICE is generating, birds, etc. must all wear electronic noise makers.

Additionally, all blind people must then take international driver awareness classes in case they go overseas to countries that think California is full of a bunch of crazy people.

How about blind people have to wear transponders so cars can know where all blind people are and warn the driver that people might jump out into the road at any given moment.

Doing that is far better than filling our cities with even more noise. Part of the beauty of the electrification of transportation is that our cities can actually become relatively quiet again. Can you imagine that paradise?

SAY NO TO ARTIFICIAL NOISE!

SAY NO TO ARTIFICIAL NOISE!
I'm with you Texas....this is absurd.

I'm with you Texas....this is absurd.

+1

When is the left coast going to sink back into the sea??? :eek:

Every blind person's home has signs posted to alert the drivers.

Californians need to stop smoking so much weed!:eek:

I also think thos California politicians are a bunch of morons.

A better idea is to have all drivers eat large amounts of beans and garlic. The drivers would have a hose attached to their head and butt. The hose would project butt stink to the rear and garlic stink out of the front of car through the hose. The blind person would be able to detect butt stink from garlic stink and would know if he was in the front or rear of the car

I think this is a bogus report. I have searched for the bill and cannot find anything like it. If you want to try search here http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/bilinfo.html
It appears to be a case of don't believe everything you read.
If I am wrong please correct me.

This reminds me of when the 17 pedestrians around the world that got hit by cars with pop-up lights were hurt 5% more than if the cars were not pop up lights made governments mandate that cars can not have pop-ups anymore. Aside from them being out of style. But In Europe, no more pop-up lighted cars. I think that's one of the reasons the corvette went to 'regular' headlights for the first time in 50-something years.

Gotta love big gov't.

Using this as an example, do you trust your government, a bigger Federal one, to establish a national energy grid or "energy plan " ???

The only federal government agency that works anything close to efficiently, not fairly but efficiently, is the Internal revenue Service.

Just putting a shout out for the National Electric Code and our Interstate highway system.

How in Gods name do you guys think we are going to coordinate a usable national system if there is no national plan? It's would be patchwork chaos.

The key would be to keep the damned politicians out of it. No special interests, no lobbyists, no pork.

The key would be to keep the damned politicians out of it. No special interests, no lobbyists, no pork.

Not even the Concerned Citizens for Responsible Electronic Vehicular Noisemaking Political Action Committee? How about the Society of Vehicular Bell Ringers? (These folks are left over from the previous turn of the century when many municipalities in the US fearing startled horses, required that in advance of any "Horseless Carriage" there be a bell ringer proceed before warning pedestrians and horses of the coming calamity. There hasn't been a lot of work for these folks lately.) What about the thousands of new jobs that could be created by research, development and production of new, high tech digital playing cards to be put in the spokes? Would you squash this fledgling new industry just when it needs the help of the great state of California most? Lastly, if politicians were not to spend their time on this matter, what would they do?? (aside from work on their re-election campaigns) Everything is working so smoothly here in California I fear that the legislators would soon get bored and fail to show up for work. Oh, wait, they already do that.

Anyhow, I think we need to really consider the consequences of your proposal before we adopt that position. ;)

Using this as an example, do you trust your government, a bigger Federal one, to establish a national energy grid or "energy plan " ???

The only federal government agency that works anything close to efficiently, not fairly but efficiently, is the Internal revenue Service.

The trick is to elect good politicians. Therein lies the problem! America is suffering from decades of mismanagement and it's starting to show. The next government is going to have to make a comprehensive energy plan that includes massive infrastructure upgrades. How well that is handled is of huge importance. I trust the Democrats more than the Republicans right now. They have their fair share of special interests and lobbyist connections, but at least they aren't so totally owned by big oil like the GOP.

Are an excellent example. A uniform standard, adopted in the interests of national security, and applied universally and quite well I might add. The existing Federal highway standards had their roots in the Eisenhower admin and were designed to allow troop movements across the country in time of need (war). Sometimes it takes a threat, or at least a a perceived one, (the commies) to get this nation up off it's Ahs and into gear. :)

I think this is a bogus report. I have searched for the bill and cannot find anything like it. If you want to try search here http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/bilinfo.html
It appears to be a case of don't believe everything you read.
If I am wrong please correct me.
Thanks for that link..
You could be right, for sure.. I never heard of "bg news".. their main page doesn't say much.. but you get the idea that it's a "college" paper.
If an idea comes up on the floor, or goes to committee, would that get into "leginfo.ca.gov/bilinfo" .. or only after it comes up as a bill?

Especially at risk are those blind people that fall into the street because the city installed wheel chair ramps. While we lived in San Jose,CA the city came through the neighborhoods and cut the curb and installed wheel chair ramps at every intersection. The blind man that lived near us said that he had fallen into the street several times because he got onto the ramp before he realized it was there. He said he never had a problem when he had a curb he could detect with his white cane. In the 15 years we lived there we never saw a wheel chair on the sidewalk. Arnold tho is looking out for our budgets. He want to issue bonds on the future income from the lottery to fund these kind of projects. Sigh!

God people are retarded. Unless you got a huge v8 or a broken exhaust the majority of the noise that comes from a car is from its tires and air disruption.


Funny in cali they have a law if you can hear the radio from like 75 feet you get a ticket. So will this over throw the law?

Officer i was Blasting Korn for the safety of the blind

I read somewhere there were 269K Hybrid's and 68k evs in California, so I can see why some noise for the blind would be helpful, and some automatic nets to catch the blind and deaf if they got to close to the street, and some way to stop dogs and cats, and probably a scooper for deer, blind and deaf people in wheelchairs might even be more challenging but something could be built into the Volt, see it will be alright, best thing is to stay out of California---NO PLUG NO SALE

Isn't this the same state that has strict laws about loud exhaust systems?? Yet now they want the cars to be louder??? Make up your minds you libtards!

God people are retarded. Unless you got a huge v8 or a broken exhaust the majority of the noise that comes from a car is from its tires and air disruption.


Funny in cali they have a law if you can hear the radio from like 75 feet you get a ticket. So will this over throw the law?

Officer i was Blasting Korn for the safety of the blind


BWAHAHAHAHA!! Yeah, it kinda would make that law ineffective now wouldn't it??!!

Has anyone linked to an actual article about this or is it all just hearsay?

Has anyone linked to an actual article about this or is it all just hearsay?
The original is bg.com .. and I'm not sure how serious they are.. but Mercury News is "serious news"..
http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_10247496