Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
The noise of an electric vehicle used to be unmistakable - a loud whining crescendo followed the clank of milk bottles. Now, however, virtually silent mass-produced electric cars will soon be creeping down our streets.
They eradicate noise pollution, and air pollution, but raise a new problem - for pedestrians, cyclists, and particularly for the blind and partially sighted.
Back when electric cars looked like golf buggies and tootled along at 30kph, the absence of a throaty combustion engine was no great danger. But electric vehicles are now matching ordinary cars in speed, with trials of a 152kmph electric Mini beginning next year in the US, and electric sports cars, such as the forthcoming 208kph Lightning, which, it is claimed, do 0-100kmph in less than four seconds.
In the UK, road safety groups are worried about children and cyclists, who are dependent on listening when changing lanes. Charities for blind people are also concerned. "We're not saying we shouldn't have electric vehicles, but we need to consider the safety implications for partially sighted people and other vulnerable pedestrians," says Clive Wood of Guide Dogs for the Blind. "It would be better to do this now, rather than wait until we have a high number of quiet vehicles on the street."
Andy de Sallis, managing director of Gem electric vehicles, points out that its cars still make a noise through their tyres, and an electric purr. Gem, which supplies vehicles to local government, businesses and police forces, also fits a warning button to its machines which is less intrusive than a horn but makes a noise like a truck reversing.
Wood, however, says that is not sufficient. "It puts the onus on the driver to recognise someone who is visually impaired, and partially sighted people are not always easy to identify. They don't all have guide dogs or white canes."
Wood wants the UK's Department for Transport to investigate the issue and establish a set of minimum requirements for vehicle noise in the UK. In California, a committee will next year make recommendations about noise-making safety features for electric vehicles which could then be introduced as law by the governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger.
