Have you ever had a near miss with an electric vehicle because you never heard it coming?
If you haven’t, you will. As EV’s rise in popularity, the problem of their silence as it pertains to pedestrians (and cyclists) will compound.
We’re so accustomed to the obvious and easily heard sounds that a moving car makes that we rely on those audible cues just as much as we do the good ole’ “right-left-right” adage we learned as wee little tikes.
But EV’s (and hybrids operating at their all-electric low speeds) don’t give those warning signals.
But they soon will…and it’s possible that a fast-moving Chevy Volt may just sound like a tie-fighter zipping out of a Star Destroyer’s hangar.
A few months ago we told you that Star Wars sound effects were being considered by EV automakers to bring a definite cool factor to the EU’s requirement that all electric vehicles must emit an artificial warning sound.
It won’t be long before the need to hit the streets of London in order to hear tie-fighter screeching or Tauntaun grunting EV’s is over.
The U.S. House of Representatives passed S. 841, the Pedestrian Safety Enhancement Act, which would require the U.S. Department of Transportation to set standards for EV alert sounds no later than 2013.
Is it just me, or would this be completely bad-ass? Yeah, it’s probably just me…
[Photo: atmtx/Flickr]
About Jeffrey Davis
