Blind people say hybrid cars pose safety risk

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.

While Stein said she would prefer that hybrids sound similar to conventional engines, other blind people said they'd be fine with any sound that was inoffensive but easy to detect. Both sides agree that it wouldn't be prohibitively expensive to outfit cars with an adequate noisemaking device.

"It's cheaper than an air bag or other safety devices," Kwong said. "Any kind of audio device is going to be relatively inexpensive."

The blind, however, will have to win over some hybrid owners as well as advocates for reduced noise pollution. Some think that making hybrids louder won't solve anything.

"To further expose millions of people to excessive noise pollution by making vehicles artificially loud is neither logical nor practical nor in the public interest," said Richard Tur, founder of NoiseOFF, a group that raises awareness of noise pollution.

Others believe that distracted pedestrians are at greater risk than blind people from quiet cars.

"The only way to function driving any car, forgetting the fact that it's a Prius, is to just be very careful and see who's around you," said George Margolin of Newport Beach, Calif., who runs a club for Prius owners with his wife. "We have to be as careful as anyone else and perhaps even more so."

Blind people are not the only ones who've had close calls. Linda Murphy, 57, a personal administrative assistant from San Marcos, Calif., has 20/20 vision when she wears her glasses, but she's almost been hit twice by hybrids.

"I'm walking right in back of it and it's moving and I didn't realize it until it nearly touched me," Murphy said, describing the first of her scares. "I never realized how dependent I was on my ears until I almost got hit."

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