[blindkid] Interesting Statistics

Richard Holloway rholloway at gopbc.org
Wed Feb 27 14:57:00 UTC 2013


In case anyone is curious as to how many "quiet" cars on the road (hybrids and the like) are potential concerns for their children's safety...

Wikipedia reports that 2.97%% of new cars sold in 2012 were hybrids. (Non-hybrid electrics would increase the "quiet total" a bit but I can't find published numbers on electric sales.) New legislation last month seems to be addressing this concern-- they want to make the cars easier to hear. I am not clear on just how well the modifications to certain quiet cars will work or when they will take place, but those on the road now will remain there until they are worn out or otherwise removed from service. There appears to be no retroactive mandate.

From 1999 through 2012, a total of 2,479,950 hybrids were sold in the US. That comes out to 1.28% of all cars sold in that timeframe.

The average age of a car on the road is 10.8 years (per the LA Times). I can't find a published figure of the percentage of total cars on the road which are hybrids.

Hybridcars.com reports that 488,000 hybrids, plug-in hybrids and electric cars were sold in the United States in 2012, accounting for 3.3 percent of the overall auto market. The Obama administration would like to get the numbers up to around 6% in the next few years.

Even if noise standards (forcing these cars to be louder) are in place in the next year or two, we'll have potentially 1% or so of quiet cars on the road from the time before the louder standards took effect for quite a few years, or perhaps more if the standards take effect later. None of this changes the fact that MOST newer cars are more aerodynamic and more carefully engineered in other ways too. This ultimately make MOST cars at least somewhat quieter than in years past.

How comfortable is any of us with the notion that at least 1 car in 100 on the road may be too quiet for a well trained blind pedestrian to safely detect and avoid?

This is no reflection on deficiencies in the abilities of the blind population, or even in just our blind children. This is a reflection of change in our world. Not only is the percentage of cars which are hybrids increasing, but the number of cars on the road is increasing as well. More cars would seem to more risk. How things were for our kids 20 or 40 years ago doesn't necessarily indicate how they are now.

For a very long time, most of society apparently thought it was okay to wait until blind kids were "old enough" to have canes, often waiting as late as middle or high school age before giving children white canes and teaching them to self-navigate. Many of us still fight to get canes into the hands of our younger kids today.

We have more blind children doing more moving about on their own these days at younger ages than in the past. We have more cars on the road than in years past  as well, and the numbers are increasing. Meanwhile we have a growing percentage of the cars on the road becoming harder and harder to hear. Finally we apparently have no proof of any kind offered that signs warning drivers of blind persons or blind children are completely ineffective (at least not so far, I'm still waiting) and even a fair amount of acknowledgement that such signs may be at least somewhat helpful.) I get that some think my ideas are bad. Where are the "better ideas"? Waiting for our kids to learn to detect nearly silent cars would not seem the appropriate choice to me.

I will leave readers to draw their own conclusions beyond what I have posted as to the appropriateness of warning signs used on a per request basis as opposed to concerns of self-esteem for the blind in-general. It seems to me that "children at play" signs fall rather short of properly  addressing many of these concerns.

Regards to all.



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