Our World

Economic friendly cars result in more vehicle pedestrian accidents?

I read an iteresting article online. It posed the problem about electric and fully economic friendly cars being too quiet for blind pedestrians to hear. In the article they stated that the tires on these new cars that would be coming out are designed to be completely silent. Is this necessarily a good thing? Sure you will be cutting back on emissions but will you be increasing the vehicle/pedestrian accident rate? And I figured not only will it affect blind people, but I believe it would also greatly affect us and the children and youth of our society.

We all know little kids always forget to look both ways before crossing the street, but they are more likely to stop if they hear something coming, but if they dont hear the car coming, I would think they could inadvertantly run out in front of an electric car to get their stray ball or frizbee. Even adults could be affected by this, if you dont have visible sight of the roadway normally you can listen and hear cars coming, but if they are as silent as they are proposed to be I think that even responsible adults could be injured or even killed by a driver of and electric vehicle not paying attention.

You can read more about the article here> http://www.autobloggreen.com/2006/09/21/electric-vehicles-pose-concerns-for-blind-pedestrians/

posted by Anonymous @ 9/21/2006 10:23:00 PM