[Quietcars] NHTSA Administrator on Rule

[Robert Wilson]

Hi,

This article about implementing S.841 showed up in my Google news alert:

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2011/10/putting-vroom-back-into-electric-cars/

"The government today made it official – those quiet electric and
hybrid cars should sound more like – well – more like their
conventional gas-powered cousins.
. . . 
Researchers concluded the best solution was to ensure that electric and
hybrid vehicles emit the same sound as vehicles with an internal
combustion engine. They determined the sound should change as the car
speeds up and slows down – to give pedestrians and other motorists even
better audio clues about how the vehicle is moving. How to get that
manufactured sound? Researchers suggested actual recordings of
conventional cars, or a digitally reproduced alternative. As for how
loud those added sounds should be? The suggested decibel level has yet
to be determined.
. . ."

This means hybrid electrics and electric cars will be just as deadly as today's vehicles, no more nor less. As for implementation, the article goes on to state:

". . .
By law, the government must start its final rule-making by next summer,
with a final rule in place by January 2014. Makers of electric and
hybrid vehicles will have three years to phase in the noise
requirements. By September of 2017, all new hybrid and electric cars
will have to turn up the decibels."

The NHTSA final report on the nature of sound is here:
http://www.nhtsa.gov/DOT/NHTSA/NVS/Crash%20Avoidance/Technical%20Publications/2011/811496.pdf

Quieter Cars and the Safety of Blind Pedestrians, Phase 2: Development of Potentical Specifications for Vehcile Countermeasure Sounds" - DOT HS 811 496

Instead of making hybrids and electric cars safer than today's cars, they will simply be just as deadly and that is a shame. For example, this weekend I was driving home from an out of town trip and there was an accident on the opposite side of the Interstate but I have learned this is the time I must be on maximum alert for the traffic in my lanes because curious drivers slow down and stop  of paying 100% attention to their local traffic, they lack the self-discipline to keep driving. 

Accident avoidance systems don't look at other accidents but stare with never blinking, never distracted, cold, calculating cameras and radars at the surrounding traffic and pedestrians. They react at computer, not human speeds this converts fender-benders into misses and fatal and injury accidents into a bad bump. 

I was concerned that David McCurdy and the Automotive Alliance might get hybrids and electric cars to sound like 'ice cream' trucks or some clown tune. An organization that gets 98-99% of their funding from gas-only powered cars would love to get more hybrid sales by making them sound silly to prospective buyers. But synthetic engine noise is the least objectionable approach and as I've pointed out in the past, makes them just as deadly as today's gas powered cars.

Bob Wilson