Y2Kyoto: Saving The Planet, One Dead Pedestrian At A Time

Roadkill 32 Comments

The hybrids’ overall likelihood of crashing with a pedestrian was 40 per cent higher than the other cars’, increasing to a 50 per cent difference in areas where speed limits were 35 mph (approximately 56 km/hour) or slower.

h/t Larry

32 Replies to “Y2Kyoto: Saving The Planet, One Dead Pedestrian At A Time”

  1. Guess they will have to put a Bell on those things.
    That might be confusing though as people may think it is the Dickie Dee ice cream truck…

  2. Custom 10: Brilliant!
    From now on, all electric vehicles will have to play ice cream truck music. The Entertainer, Pop Goes The Weasel, Turkey In The Straw, whatever suits the driver’s fancy.
    Sure it’ll be annoying, but safety first.

  4. As advocates of the “precautionary principle” love to parrot, “If it saves just one life”, ban hybrid vehicles.

  5. It’s part of the liberals’ “I am politically correct therefore the rest of the world has to get out of my way” philosophy.

  8. Wonder if any of the advertising brochures are boasting about the ‘dead silence’ in their cars?

  9. Shhhh, its a stealth weapon.
    It’s designed to reduce mankinds carbon footprint, one carbon unit at a time….by running them over.
    The irony makes one shake ones head(softly chuckling)!

  10. I read sometime ago, that these cars were an extreme hazard to the blind. They were supposed to add some sort of “noise”.

  12. They should have horns that play “La Cucaracha” every two minutes. And they should all have those orange balls on the antennas so you can find your car right away in mega-parking lots.

  13. “”If it saves just one life”,,, we must ban them for the sake of the children. The hybrid can be bought and sold but used only on the perimeters of one’s own property aka the cigarette smoking rules.

  14. There’s a simple technological fix: all hybrids must be equipped with spoked wheels, and have a baseball card clipped to the brake caliper with a clothespin.

  15. rockyt
    [……..Wonder if any of the advertising brochures are boasting about the ‘dead silence’ in their cars?………..]
    My memory is like my hearing…not what it used to be but I distinctly remember hybred TV commercials about these things not spooking deer….so the kiddies could look at bambi….
    It was months back maybe a year or so….probably before they started painting cross white canes on the hoods…..

  17. It sounds to me a lot like the argument against noisy motorcycles. … All the government needs to do is outlaw accidents, then they’ll have done something.

  18. “The hybrid can be bought and sold but used only on the perimeters of one’s own property”
    In addition, the doors must bear graphic images of dead and injured pedestrians, they cannot be advertised or displayed in any manner and they cannot be used on school property or within 3 meters of any doorway.

  19. Remember the Jackson Browne song “Boulevard”?
    One passage is:
    “everybody walks right by like they’re safe or something”

  20. I have no problem with this. The person driving the vehicle has the responsibility of not not running over people. The word of the day is sue … nobody made them be a stealth killer/maimer.
    Insurance rates should jump if you are driving one of these.

  22. Oh, come on, people.
    I know you all love to bash hybrids, but, really!
    The linked article refers to “crashes” (a not very informative phrase) without a single detail about the severity or morbidity of such incidents. In particular, despite Kate’s lurid comment, the article did not reference a single death.
    Now, who is more at fault? The person driving the quiet car, or the person who walks out in the street without looking because they don’t hear anything? Would you also be blaming cyclists if someone was hit by a bicycle because the pedestrian walked out from between two parked cars without looking?
    I thought most people here were fans of personal responsibility. Have I been wrong?

  23. LOL love the one liners in here.
    Please make it stop! It hurts too much snorting coffee. Not inwards either.

  24. Would you also be blaming cyclists if someone was hit by a bicycle because the pedestrian walked out from between two parked cars without looking?
    I’d be banning cyclists, especially those stupid e-bikes.
    Bicycles should have been banned from the roads when they banned horses.

  25. Take a dead-silent greenie mobile, paint it flat black and go trolling for envirowanker cyclists and bike couriers in the wilds of darkest downtown Toronto.
    Its not a bug. Its a feature!

  26. you know, I heard something like this was going to happen,
    or maybe I didn’t hear it…

  27. KevinB said: “Now, who is more at fault? The person driving the quiet car, or the person who walks out in the street without looking because they don’t hear anything?”
    Quick Reality Check(TM) analysis Kevin.
    Five years ago, all cars made engine noise that you can hear up close. Engine speeds up, car is moving or going to. Everyone knows this the way they know to look down for a dropped pencil, not up.
    Today, all cars still make noise EXCEPT the amazingly -rare- hybrid car running on battery mode. Rare to the point where I personally have never seen one of these things running silent.
    So to the hind brain, 1/30th of a second reaction time safety center of all pedestrians and cyclists, all cars still make noise because most people have still never seen a silent car.
    So, upon whom is the responsibility? An interesting conundrum.
    Myself, after a few close calls I’d likely install a quiet horn or a bell or something additional to the main horn, so I could meep-meep at people that didn’t look like they were paying attention without scaring the doodoo out of them. Maybe a nice Jetson’s flying car sound.
    After all, there is a limit to the amount of vigilance it is reasonable to expect from people when -you- are the anomaly, not them. Considering the consequences are pain and injury, perhaps some pro-active measures by silent car owners would be welcome?
    But most of all Kevin, when you are in a car, by law -you- are liable in most collisions with bicycles and -all- collisions with pedestrians, unless they literally run into the side of your car. It would be good planning to have the car make some noise, so that you don’t end up on the hook for running over a kid.
    Most people don’t do well after running a kid over, even when they didn’t have a ghost of a chance to avoid it. The guilt eats them.

  28. Jim Barker – right on with that comment. My step-mom is legally blind and a couple of year ago approached a crosswalk across a turning lane. There was lots of traffic noise in the area, her squints in the direction of the oncoming lane didn’t show anything, and she didn’t hear any cars approaching from that side so she started to cross. The small, grey (camouflaged to weak eyes) quiet car slammed on the brakes before hitting her legs, she wound up leaning on the hood but not seriously injured. The young guy (she thought he was a teenager) jumped out of the car and started screaming at her “what’s wrong with you, are you blind or stupid or something?” and only paused for a moment when she held up her white cane. It wasn’t a hybrid, but a small Toyota or Honda with a quiet engine.
    Cars that are quieter than average are already dangerous to the blind. Cars that are electric will lead to more smaller incidents and (following the safety pyramid) will ultimately lead to fatalities. The best type of safety removes issues before they can cause incidents. Sorry KevinB, but you’re arguing for something similar to removing handrails along catwalks and however well intentioned you are, your thoughts (if put into action) will kill people.

  29. KevinB,
    Nice try. Time for you to answer a couple of questions.
    Who is more at fault – the lady loading her groceries into the back of her SUV or the guy that backed up his HEV into her?
    Would you also be blaming pedestrians if someone was hit by a bicycle because the pedestrian wasn’t looking backwards when he crossed a street?
    I read somewhere (don’t have a link) that the number one reason given for getting into a collision was that they didn’t see the other guy. The stat that is impossible to measure is number of times a collision was avoided, when you didn’t see the other guy – but heard him.
    Check out deaths by iPod. NY wants to ban them when crossing a street.
    BTW: The paper referenced at Kate’s link can be found here.

  30. Oh, balderdash. Can’t people walk and think simultaneously? What if someone is blind and deaf? I like the idea of less noise.
    Electric cars don’t kill people; people kill people.

  31. I don’t think it’s the silence. I think it’s the brakes.
    When I drove a rental Prius, I almost rear ended a couple of cars. It took far longer to stop than I expected. I also drove into the crosswalk a few times.
    I brought my own car in for body work, and I noticed several Priuses in the shop, ALL with front end damage.
    Law of Conservation of Energy: the regenerative brakes recharge the battery, but all the energy used to do that is NOT used for braking.
    I also learned from my own car that the accelerator pedal is the switch to activate the car’s computer. It’s not mechanical, but electronic. A throttle positioning sensor detects where the pedal is and sends the input to the throttle. So I don’t think the runaway Toyotas have anything to do with floormats, but with a faulty throttle positioning sensor or faulty computer software.
    These hybrid cars are killing people.

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