[Quietcars] A very hard decision to make.

[michael townsend]

Ken, you asked about the different environmentally friendly yet safety
conscious decisions to be made when purchasing a car today.  

Speaking purely from the open minded car guy I am, there are the old
standbys, like Prius, which can be equipped with every safety feature and
high tech gadget you would ever want, from the cameras, to the pedestrian
safety equipment, including pedestrian detectors, to the high0end 
Tesla products, which are safe, safety conscious and environmentally
friendly.  

And, as this theme grows, each manufacturer will have a car to fit the bill.

Sadly, the 
Chevy 

Volt doesn't quite meet the stands we as blind people had expected, for
their warning systems to give pedestrians a heads up have been put in the
cars with defeatable programming.  

I haven't read much about the Nissan Leaf, which appears to be every bit as
environmentally friendly as the volt, but doesn't have the contribution of a
small gas engine to chug the car along after the juice dies.  

I would expect that Mercedes, Infinity and other high end hybrid production
vehicles would make efforts to keep pedestrians in mind when they develop
their hybrid vehicles, knowing officially that the standards for
implementation of safety precautions are just some months away.  

I think that, in costing, back, up cameras have been projected to be on
board many vehicles as early as the next model year, abut probably on board
most cars in a year or two, which is a good thing, and that some sort of
pedestrian avoidance system, which are like that offered by Volvo, will be a
part of either the options list or standard in most cars shortly.  After
all, it doesn't cost that much, and a mishap will end up costing drivers or
car companies a helluva lot more.  Given the old adage of putting a fifty
cent seatbelt clip on passenger cars' seatbelts for car seats, I am not sure
if the safety issue will be approved lovingly across the board, but it has
to be in order to keep the feds happy.


"It isn't pollution that is hurting the environment,
it's the impurities in our air and water that are doing it."
-Dan Quayle

Mike Townsend and Seeing Eye dog Brent
Dunellen, New Jersey  08812
emails:  mrtownsend at optonline.net; 
michael.townsend54 at gmail.com
Home Phone:  732  200-5643
Cellular:  732  718-9480