tommylommykins wrote:Giblet wrote:tommylommykins wrote:Urm, sorry to point out the obvious... but don't most normal internal combustion cars produce almost no noteworthy engine-noise at all?
I'm a cyclist, and I listen out for the road-noise of cars rather than the the engine-note.
Sure, so as a cyclist you understand how much you can feel / hear your tires. Hybrids have very low cd, and low rolling resistance narrow tires making hybrids quieter in this department as well. Anyone with a sporty car or an aftermarket intake you can hear coming.
Again a blind person might hear 1 car coming and not two if one was ahybrid.
I do not feel other vehicles' tyres while I am cycling.
I can't say I've ever noticed a hybrid car on the road as I've been cycling... This could either be because I have never actually come across one or because they do not make noise in such significantly fewer amounts that I've noticed the silence while being overtaken and then realising that they were hybrid.
Regardless, until I see good proof that such cars really are silent and deadly, I will go on holding the opinion that anything fast enough to overtake me will be loud enough for me to hear it before I see it (and I'm by no means a fast cyclist, but anything fast enough to get past me would be travelling at 'normal' urban road speeds)
Maybe I'm just being big-headed and am about to be squashed by the next hybrid that comes anywhere near my rear wheel, but this problem is not one that worries me significantly.
Your on a bike, so it takes a certain amount of '---" to do it anyways. I have mentioned the unsighted twice in this forum, and these are the people that are being addressed. When a blind person is at an intersection, he is using every bit of mental power to hear the beeping on both sides of the street, so he can cross, straight. A blind person will have to trust these intersections.
Problem being, is if a car is waiting to turn right (left in UK), quite often they completely forget about pedestrians, and start to turn just as we get the pedestrian walk sign changes. A car sitting there waiting to turn, makes enough noise to hear (fanbelt, intake, etc). A hybrid shust off, and is completely silent. The blind person will not know it is there.
The entire auto industry is in agreement form a quick google.
As well, I said you can feel and hear
your tires when cycling not other cars tires.
I think you are being big headed, not accounting for the people in our society who are not able to do what you can do.
"A Toyota spokesman, John Hanson, said: “I don’t know of any injuries related to this, but it is a concern. We are moving rapidly toward broader use of electrification in vehicles, and it’s a fact that these cars are very quiet and could pose a risk to unsighted people.”"
Seems more than obvious to me.
