Clearly the populace is too dumb to make allowances when their EV (or hybrid running on the electric motor) is silent and thus pedestrians might not hear you coming, so in the future such vehicles will now have noise-adding “features” thanks to our over-protective nannies in Congress. Ptui.
I’ve driven a Prius since October 2000 and figured this out in about the first 15 minutes and have never had a problem with pedestrians not hearing me approaching. I simply assume that they can’t.
Hey, I’ve got an idea. Let’s lower the speed limit on Interstates to 15 mph. That would save so many lives. And then mandate that electric vehicles must have people-sensing radar and sound a loud siren when a pedestrian is 100 feet away. That will certainly save even more lives. Because clearly the populace is too ignorant to understand these complicated issues without out-of-touch urban technocrats in DC telling them what’s good for them.
And what about blind people who rely on noise when crossing the street?
Blind people are paying attention. Sighted people who walk out into a street without looking aren’t, that’s what I found with the Prius. And a blind person will probably hear the tires on the Prius anyway because they rely much more on hearing.
But instead of a blunderbuss approach by the government a simple amount of education and training is all that’s needed. Like I said, it took me maybe 15 minutes to figure this out after one idiot walked into the street without looking. And in the ten years after that I’ve not had any problems.