"Bell the Hybrid"

Bob,

I appreciate your efforts to inject reason into the legislative process in
this issue, although recent history teaches us that reason has little to do
with the legislative process. After reviewing the data you presented, I
completely agree with your analysis regarding the risk vs. benefit tradeoff,
since the data suggest that hybrids are no more responsible for pedestrian
accidents than any other vehicle--thus the problem has been identified on
the basis of perception alone. Perception can be a dangerous thing to the
rational.

What I am wondering is: has Toyota (or any other hybrid manufacturer)
weighed in on the issue yet? It seems they have the most to lose--cost
associated with developing a solution and loss of sales due to potential for
hybrids to become less desirable (and possibly more expensive) to consumers
being the first things to come to mind.

History has also taught us that large corporations tend to have more
influence on legislation than well-intentioned citizens, no matter how
obvious or well-supported their case may be.

- Doug

"Bob & Holly Wilson" <bwilson4use@m> wrote in message
news:1inax0e.qdad659428n4N%bwilson4use@m ...
>...
> In the meanwhile, I've had success with a spare NHW11 keyfob. I've
> mapped the transmit frequency, duration and figured out the data
> encoding. I've not tried to decrypt the packets, yet, but that is not
> really required. At a minimum, I can prototype a workable keyfob system
> and demonstrate it to Congress.
> Bob Wilson
>
I've used my handheld comms receiver (Icom IC-R20, if you're into that sort
of thing) for the same purpose, although I didn't get as far as you did
since, at the time, I didn't have a particular goal in mind--I was just
curious.

I assume your keyfob idea is for the car to detect the proximity of a keyfob
carried by an "at risk" pedestrian, then use the horn or something to
produce an audible signal. Is that correct? I think this is a workable
idea, but my main concern would be that of range. Isn't the range for the
SKS system fairly limited by design? Is the range sufficient to provide a
warning with reasonable reaction time? That aside, clearly an RF-based
approach holds a lot of promise. One could imagine incorporating
transmitters into canes, seeing-eye dog harnesses or leashes, etc., so it
doesn't increase the burden.

Seems like a cell phone would also be a great starting point--one that is
programmed to periodically output a specially encoded signal. The advantage
there is the potential for range and for including other types of features
(for instance, the phone could speak to the user, say, to give directional
or speed information) with little to no incremental cost. Most everybody
carries one already anyway. The down side in that case would be that the
hybrids would have to be appropriately equipped to receive and act upon the
special cell phone signal.

- Doug

Mr Ed <ecamin@> wrote:

> What about Bicycles. If they bell us, they'll have to bell Bikes.

The blind have claimed an 8 year old boy who turned into a Prius riding
his bicycle would not had the Prius made engine noise. His mother made
this claim instead of stating that she should teach her son to 'look
before turning into traffic.'

Of course the blind consider this perfect justification for "Bell the
Hybrid." Will the kid reach puberty with a mother like that?

Bob Wilson