[Quietcars] Let us reason together

[Corbb O'Connor]

Hi Bob,

I appreciate your willingness to work with the blind and others about
this sensitive issue. I have a question, though, and I have quoted the
part of your e-mail that I am confused by below.

If I understand your wireless solution properly, which is not
something that I am sure about, it seems that you propose giving folks
(blind, kids, or anybody) a wireless receiver device to signal, "Hey!
There's a quiet car near you!" Am I correct? You've talked, too, in
the past about affixing that device to canes or guide dog harnesses.
In that form, though, I do not know how useful that would be to me. If
I am standing at the busiest, and most confusing intersection, in
downtown Washington, DC (23rd and I Streets, NW), that device would
tell me that somewhere, within maybe a block radius, there is a quiet
car. I do not know, however, how fast that car is traveling, in what
direction, how near to me, or whether that vehicle presents a danger.
Maybe that car is traveling southbound, but I am waiting to cross the
eastbound lanes.

Let's expand this device, maybe ten years from now, when hybrids are
even more popular. I now know that there are several hybrids around
me, traveling at different speeds, some decelerating, and some
traveling in a direction that doesn't impact my line of travel.

The easiest, least-expensive for the blind traveler, and most
informative for all involved—it seems to me—is to have cars sound like
cars. All of us—blind, sighted, young or old—can listen to the motion
of a car and know if it is accelerating, decelerating, coming toward
us, or any other important information. If you give me a device, who
will pay for it? What about the countless number of blind people who
can't afford that? What about the folks who do not carry canes, the
very people that we in the NFB look to reach out toward in our daily
efforts, who have no formal orientation and mobility training -- does
this mean that they, too, will have to receive a device?

I am open to new ideas, Bob. I appreciate your work, too. I just don't
see how this device will give me the information that I need,
especially in a crowded environment of many hybrid vehicles.

Thank you for your continued research.

Corbb O'Connor
NFB of Virginia

On Oct 30, 2008, at 9:30 AM, Robert Wilson wrote:

The second area for collaboration is the "Carmeron Gulbransen Kids and
Cars Safety Act of 2007" that is already law. Goran Bogdanovic of
Creative Performance Products has a prototype wireless warning system.
I have a key fob system under development. The Japanese are putting
wireless warning systems in cell phones. These wireless systems can
address public law, S. 694 / HR 1216, the Carmeron Gulbransen Act
which means the NHTSA has budget and authority to pursue solutions.
The question is whether we can collaborate on a wireless solution that
works for kids, the blind and the elderly or have to go our separate
ways because only one technological solution, constant noise
generators affixed to hybrid cars, is the only one acceptable to the
blind.