Since last posting here, I attended the June 23 NHTSA hearing and the July 19-20 Hybridfest convention. Everything I've seen, read and heard there and since has only re-enforced my resolve to fix HR 5734 that we call the "Bell The Hybrid Act" because it only mentions hybrids and electric cars.

One of the most important reports is "Backover and Non-Crash Events Special Crash Investigations Protecting Children in and Around Cars Lifesavers 2008" April 13, 2008, Augustus “Chip” Chidester, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. In one year, there were 50 back-over accidents that killed 25 kids, most of them between 2-5 years of age. They were knocked down, crushed and killed under the rear bumpers with the engine running exhaust pipe right there. This is how successful noise generators are that in 2006 killed 5 blind ... not one by a Prius but ordinary noise generating vehicles.

Page 32 of the Chidester report has photos with tape around the bumper, exhaust pipe and the turned-off, ultrasonic detector of the fatal vehicle. The engine was running yet the kid still died. That is the same success of noise making cars that spill the blood of 4,700 pedestrians every year.

Hybrid owners want effective systems, ones that work, not these nonsense noise makers that make our hybrids just as deadly as today's cars.

Bob Wilson

The proposed legislation does nothing for the deaf, only the hearing will get an audio clue.

The proposed sound levels are the same level as engine noises of the cars and trucks that already kill 4,700 pedestrians every year.

The proposed payers for these sound generators are the hybrid owners who have been and remain excluded from any evaluation or planning of this solution.

As one of the moderators of GreenHybrid.com, the multi-hybrid Web site and largest hybrid mileage database and frequent contributors to other Prius forums, we know that no one from the disabled community has even tried to discuss this with us. Worse, my ability to discuss this issue in the "Quietcars" mailing list was terminated. We call that "selective audio acuity ... listening to only what you want to hear."

The accident statistics from 2002-2006 show about 5 deaf people die in auto accidents per year and none have in that data been killed by a Prius. In the meanwhile, sound emitting vehicles continue to kill pedestrians at an average rate of over 12 per day and this legislation only continues that rate of death and carnage.

Hybrid electric owners are natural innovators and technological pioneers but this solution is in opposition to the "smart highway" system that would save not only the blind but deaf, physically impaired, bicyclists and even Harley motorcyclists. Instead of just one person, the deaf, getting a weak notice, two people, the deaf and the driver would get notice of each other. Best of all, our hybrid electric cars can help both parties to avoid the accident since it is terribly difficult to "hear the safe place."

We agree with the goals of this proposal, to reduce pedestrian deaths, but know already it is only repeating the same approach, sound only, that kills 4,700 pedestrians and cyclists per year. Include the hybrid owners in the discussion and we can get a bill that everyone agrees to. Ignore us and we will have no recourse but address the "Bell the Hybrid Act" and share these and other inconvenient truths in every public forum ... including those that do not silence our voices.

Bob Wilson