In one particularly hilarious scene in the TV show Weeds, Mary-Louise Parkers soccer mom/drug dealer character inspires a scary drug lord to buy several Toyota Priuses after he successfully carries out a drive-by shooting while riding in hers. The selling point? The quietness of the hybrid. Good for sneaking up on mother******s, he cackles.
That might no longer be the case with a piece of legislation that recently passed the Senate and looks to be cleared for approval in the House. The Pedestrian Safety Enhancement Act would require electric cars and hybrids to make noise, and would fund the Department of Transportation to create a set of rules for automakers, who would be allowed some leeway in how they carry out the guidelines.
Green cars like Priuses (pictured) or the all-electric Nissan Leaf dont make noise because they dont have an internal combustion engine. So whether you have an armed drug dealer as an enemy or (more likely) happen to cross the street without looking, hybrids are more likely to hit you than regular cars, especially when operating at low speeds, according to a study by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Of particularly concern was the potential danger to blind pedestrians. But researchers and writers have also challenged that study, saying the methodology was flawed.
Automakers have tried their own cures for the issue. The Chevrolet Volt has tried to ward off this problem with a quieter horn built into the car you pull the turn signal towards you, and it emits a muffled, friendlier honk that workers internally call the hybrid hello. The Nissan Leaf automatically makes noise after you go over 12 miles an hour. Lotus Engineering has created a spaceship-sounding system that can be installed in the Prius. As Green Car Reports note, the legislation would allow for a common set of standards, rather than than a motley crew of approaches attempted by various automakers.
Theres been some argument over whether or not the legislation is really necessary if the original government study was wrong, then maybe not. But if itll make pedestrians safer at no great cost to the electric car industry, its hard to see how this will hurt beyond the annoyances of government bureaucracy. Either way, it looks like fictional drug warlords will be out one weapon.
