[Quietcars] Hybrid vehicles' silence seen as posing peril, MSNBC.com, June 8, 2009

[michael townsend]

I really think that what needs to be done here is that all writers have to
get on the same page.  

Most hybrid cars have badges denoting that they are hybrids.  

Blindness organizations have to understand that safety is a key issue here,
but that peole are working on testing, legislation, the type of arrangements
that will solve the issue, and we as a community have to become more
familiar with the vehicles.  

Several dog guide schools have these cars in their fleets in order to train
students and dogs to react to them.

State agencies who offer cane travel should allow students to see a hybrid
up close so that they too can know what the hybrid is all about.  

Hard of hearing, the elderly, bicyclists, these emergency workers, etc., all
are effected.  

The term silent killer is way overblown, and I do not accept this.  It is
sensational journalism, a tool which has been used to slant the news and
evoke an emotional response as long as reporters have been writing stories.


The ACB and NFB have been working together to try and put forth legislation,
as have several of our concerned congress and senate representatives to find
a solution to this issue.  But, as a person first, and a person who happens
not to see, who travels with a dog, I'll tell you that I'm growing tired of
these articles written with the pity party in mind.  You may not like what I
have to say, but I am an advocate for the blind, for access and safety, and
I find this abhorrent and offensive that the tone continues to be, "look
what they're doing to us."  

I appreciate everyone's effort to try and work through the issues that
concern us regarding this, but news displays like this, in my very humble
opinion, don't do anything but drive a wedge between the auto manufacturers,
the public and we who need to be more proactive rather than reactive as this
article appears to revealing.


-----Original Message-----
From: quietcars-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:quietcars-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of Nightingale, Noel
Sent: Wednesday, June 10, 2009 7:19 PM
To: 'quietcars at nfbnet.org'
Subject: [Quietcars] Hybrid vehicles' silence seen as posing peril,
MSNBC.com, June 8, 2009


Link:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31112317/from/ET/

Text:
Hybrid vehicles' silence seen as posing peril Emergency workers share
concern of advocates for blind over quiet motors By Alex Johnson Monday,
June 8, 2009

As the car crept up to them, the students didn't react. It wasn't until it
was about to run them over that they even knew it was there. And that was
only because it hit their white canes.

The hybrid car's electric motor had kicked in. And the students, all of whom
are blind, couldn't hear it.

"It came up, and it was right there. We had no idea it was even coming,"
said Chad Wilburn, one of students, who took part in a demonstration of the
new hazard posed by the quiet hybrid vehicles earlier this year in Salt Lake
City by the Utah Center for the Blind.

Advocates for the sight-impaired say the vroom of a conventional engine is
the only sure way a blind pedestrian can know that he or she may be walking
into the path of an approaching car. They have been pushing for safety
measures for several years, and Congress is considering a bill that would
order the Transportation Department to make sure hybrids and the coming
generation of all-electric vehicles make enough noise to be heard.

But they're not the only ones worried about the silence. Emergency workers
are raising the alarm, too, saying it can be hard to tell whether a hybrid's
engine is still running at the scene of an accident.

"If it's in gear, it can lurch forward and injure someone," said James
Surrell, a physician at Marquette General Hospital in Michigan, who teaches
hybrid safety classes for rescue workers and emergency medical technicians.

Hybrids' electronic motors offer several other challenges for emergency
workers at the scene of an accident. The biggest is that they are electronic
motors.

In addition to a standard 12-volt battery under the hood, a typical hybrid
engine uses another battery under the back seat that packs as many as 600
volts - more than enough to cause instantaneous death.

There have been no documented reports of any emergency worker's having been
electrocuted by a hybrid battery in the United States. But in literature
they publish for emergency responders, nearly all manufacturers include
vivid warnings like this one in the first-response manual for the Nissan
Altima Hybrid: "Failure to disable the high voltage electrical system before
emergency response procedures are performed may result in serious injury or
death from electrical shock."

First puzzle: Is it a hybrid?

On the road, government safety tests indicate that hybrid vehicles are just
as safe as their gas-powered counterparts. Any concerns come from what to do
once one of them has been in an accident.

The high-voltage batteries are thoroughly sealed in protective metal, and
there is little chance that they could leak or explode. In fact, hybrid
engines are packed with automatic sensors designed to stop the flow of
electricity on impact or whenever the side-impact air bags deploy.

But that assumes the sensors themselves haven't been damaged.

In its guide for emergency responders, Toyota, whose Prius popularized
hybrids in the United States, warns crews to "never assume the Prius is shut
off simply because it is silent."

Emergency agencies across the nation have added specialized training for
workers responding to accident scenes involving hybrids, like a hybrid
safety seminar last month at the Lamar Institute of Technology in Beaumont,
Texas. That's because "we're worried about forced entry into a hybrid and
using the jaws of life," said Brad Pennison, a captain with the Beaumont
Fire Department.

At these seminars, crews learn that the first difficulty is recognizing that
a vehicle is, in fact, a hybrid, which calls for different procedures.

Most contemporary hybrids are built to resemble their conventional
counterparts - a design philosophy the industry calls "mainstreaming." Many
can be identified only by a badge or a small logo; if that's damaged or
hidden by debris or another vehicle, rescue crews may have no obvious clue
that there's a high-voltage battery lurking in the wreckage.

If the "hybrid" badge is missing from the door of its Silverado and Sierra
trucks, Chevrolet details a four-step inspection process that crews should
follow to determine whether they're dealing with a hybrid or a conventional
engine. Steps 3 and 4 require opening the hood, assuming the emergency
workers can get to it.

Saturn, meanwhile, suggests finding the vehicle identification number on its
Vue sport utility. "If the eighth digit is a five (5), this signifies the
vehicle is a Hybrid," its responder guide says.

Just how do you turn this thing off?

Once crews know they're dealing with a hybrid, the next step is to make sure
it's turned off. All manufacturers say simply switching off the ignition and
removing the key is the best way to disable the system. But that's not
foolproof.

For example, even when the motors are disabled, "power remains in the high
voltage electrical system for 5 minutes after the HV electrical system is
shut off" in the Prius, Toyota says. On the Lexus GS450h, it can be as long
as 10 minutes.

And those instructions assume that the key or the ignition system is
accessible. If it isn't, the next option is to disable the standard 12-volt
battery, blocking power to the bigger, more dangerous battery.

Different vehicles have different ways to do that, information that rescuers
must either know when they arrive at the scene of an accident or be able to
quickly retrieve.

On Honda hybrids, crews are advised to remove the main fuse (they must have
a Phillips-head screwdriver handy) and cut both cables on the 12-volt
battery.

On Lexus' GS450h, however, they have to remove a yellow fuse in the engine
junction compartment block. On the Lexus RX400h, it's a red fuse. But on the
Lexus LH600h L, they should remove the IG2 relay.

Other hybrids call for non-intuitive steps that crews must take before they
can even try to disconnect the 12-volt battery. In the Nissan Altima, for
instance, they first have to move the power seats and operate the power
trunk release.

'You need to know these little things'

If, in the worst case, emergency workers have to go near the big battery
cables, they're generally in luck. Nearly all hybrids color-code their
battery lines in orange, an easy visual clue. But in some Saturns, some of
the cables are blue.

The color isn't set by any law, meaning not only that there isn't 100
percent consistency, but there's no guarantee that manufacturers planning to
enter the market will observe the unofficial orange standard.

Complications like that mean emergency crews have to take extra time to
assess an accident scene, even if injured victims need rescuing.

"There's this tremendous amount of electrical energy," said Surrell, of
Marquette General Hospital. "You need to know these little things about
hybrids because of the potential electrical danger to the victim of the
accident and the rescuer alike."

Sidebar:
How quiet is a hybrid?
Researchers at the University of California-Riverside found last year that
the margin of safety for blind pedestrians was 74 percent less when a hybrid
was approaching silently, compared to a vehicle with a conventional engine.
Subjects could correctly judge the approach of a conventional car when it
was about 28 feet away, but they couldn't detect a hybrid until it was 7
feet away - or about one second from running them over.


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