Within one year, the industry can expect a rulemaking from NHTSA that requires audible alarms be installed on all electric and hybrid vehicles, including school buses.
NHTSA’s action specifically seeks to protect pedestrians who are visually impaired and might not otherwise hear the electric and hybrid vehicles approaching.
The administration published a notice of intent earlier this month to analyze the potential environmental impacts of implementing rulemaking mandated by the Pedestrian Safety Enhancement Act of 2010. One of the provisions passed by Congress was to require electric and hybrid vehicles to have pedestrian safety sound systems, or PEDSAFE, that emit sound in certain operating conditions to better alert pedestrians of the vehicles’ presence.
“Even as we make giant leaps forward with hybrid and electric vehicles, we must remain laser focused on safety,” said NHTSA Administrator David Strickland in a statement on July 7. “With more and more quiet vehicles on the road, we have to consider their effect on pedestrians.”
NHTSA first held a public meeting in June 2008 to discuss technical and safety policy issues associated with electric and hybrid vehicles and quiet internal combustion engines and the risks those vehicles can have for the visually impaired. Two studies resulted from that meeting, one in October 2009 that examined the rates of collisions of these vehicles with pedestrians, and another in April 2010 that found that quieter vehicles, especially electric and hybrid vehicles operating at low speeds, may present safety issues.
Sound levels for hybrid-electric vehicles that were tested were lower at low speeds than those of internal combustion engines. Additionally, NHTSA said that human response times differed depending on the vehicle tested. Along came the Pedestrian Enhancement Act to do something about it, namely to require electric and hybrid vehicles to emit an alert that allows pedestrians to “reasonably” detect the presence, direction, location and operation of the approaching vehicle.
The law covers all types of light-duty passenger vehicles as well as low-speed vehicles, motorcycles and medium- and heavy-duty buses and trucks. School buses fall in the latter category.
Comments to Docket No. NHTSA-2011-0100 are sought by early August. The Pedestrian Safety Enhancement Act mandated that NHTSA initiate rulemaking within the next 18 months retroactive to Jan. 4 of this year, when the law was enacted. That means NHTSA must initiate rulemaking by July 4, 2012.
