The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said the rule was needed because battery-powered vehicles are very quiet.
It said the rule would particularly help blind pedestrians, or those with a visual impairment, detect electric cars and hybrids on the road.
The new safety rule could help prevent 2,400 injuries a year, said the NHTSA.
The rule demands that the cars make a noise when travelling either forwards or backwards at speeds of less than 30kmh (19mph). The regulation covers vehicles with four wheels that weigh less than 10,000 pounds (4.5 tonnes).
The safety specification requires car makers to use a two-tone signal similar to that currently emitted by heavy vehicles when they are reversing.
It would be more fun if drivers could customize what that sound is, such as "La Cucaracha" or the whine of a Shadow vessel.
Electric and hybrid cars are to include a noise generation device for travel at low speeds with no internal combustion engine: http://www.nhtsa.gov/About-NHTSA/Press-Releases/nhtsa_quiet_car_final_rule_11142016.
There goes my quiet electric future.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 17 2016, @06:54AM
It makes the driver's job a lot harder if even more pedestrians do incredibly stupid things.
My guess ( Stetson-Harrison analysis ) is that 90+% of pedestrians look before they venture into a roadway, while the remaining 10% are kept from being terminated by darwinian methods via very heavy penalties. My cat seems to have more sense concerning roadways than some people I know.
When it comes to consideration of probabilities of a really bad outcome for them, well, some people seem to completely lack this ability. The phone trumps the path of a ton of steel on a given heading.
( I knew of another cat that didn't have much sense about the roadway and thought the roadway was a nice warm place to curl up for a nap. That particular cat never fathered any offspring. Darwinian elimination at work. )
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday November 17 2016, @03:57PM
People don't know they are entering roadways if they are busy looking at FaceTwit on their phone while walking.
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