A few days ago, I nearly became another accident statistic. As I walked through a parking garage, a Nissan Altima Hybrid backed silently out of its parking spot.  A large column obscured my vision of the car and its driver probably didn’t see me, either. The car missed me by less than two inches.

Once my heartbeat got back to its normal rhythm I realized that the audible cues that normally would have alerted me to a moving vehicle were absent with the hybrid.  Any “full” hybrid that can run on only electric power, even momentarily, poses the same hazard. The few completely electric vehicles on the road have the same sound of silence.
 
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, there were about 4,400 pedestrians killed by motor vehicles last year and another 69,000 injured. The National Federation of the Blind says that visually impaired pedestrians are particularly at risk. The group has been pushing for legislation that would require all vehicles to emit a sound similar to engine noise in all phases of operation. Some car makers, including Nissan, are researching the use of pleasant-sounding warning systems that alert pedestrians to their moving hybrid vehicles, but unless the sounds are easily recognizable and relatively consistent among all vehicle manufacturers, people may not recognize them as warnings.

The Washington Post reported on this issue today, citing one disturbing result from a yet-to-be released NHTSA study comparing the accident rates for some hybrid vehicles to their conventional engine-powered counterparts.  According to the Post, "the analysis suggests that during certain low-speed maneuvers such as turning and backing up, hybrid vehicles are 50 percent more likely to be involved in an accident with a pedestrian."
 
Until car makers and NHTSA figure out the best solution to silent-running hybrid and electric vehicles, we know of one partial solution that might work for some cars.  In January 1992, we reported on the Back-Up Alert, which replaces a car’s standard back-up bulb with a bright halogen bulb and a small beeper that sounds when the car is shifted into reverse.  We reported that “the alarm produced a sound that’s loud enough to alert a child in a driveway, but not loud enough to draw the neighbors’ ire.”  We found versions of the bulbs and similar products available on Internet sites such as JC Whitney, but not for all makes and models.

Anyone who has a silent-running hybrid should consider installing a warning system. And I hope similar products are developed for more models to alert pedestrians to hybrids moving in any direction.  It’s not a complete solution for the blind or visually impaired, but it might prevent guys like me from being flattened in a parking garage.—Don Mays