Gas-electric hybrid vehicles, the status symbol for the environmentally conscientious, are coming under attack from a constituency that doesn"t drive: the blind. Because hybrids make virtually no noise at slower speeds when they run solely on electric power, blind people say they pose a hazard to those who rely on their ears to determine whether it"s safe to cross the street or walk through a parking lot. "I"m used to being able to get sound cues from my environment and negotiate accordingly. I hadn"t imagined there was anything I really wouldn"t be able to hear," said Deborah Kent Stein, chairwoman of the National Federation of the Blind"s Committee on Automotive and Pedestrian Safety. "We did a test, and I discovered, to my great dismay, that I couldn"t hear it."
The tests - admittedly unscientific - involved people standing in parking lots or on sidewalks who were asked to signal when they heard several different hybrid models drive by. "People were making comments like, "When are they going to start the test?" And it would turn out that the vehicle had already done two or three laps around the parking lot," Stein said. Officials with two separate arms of the U.S. Department of Transportation - the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Federal Highway Administration - said they are aware of the problem but have not studied it.