A ridiculous bill

As a teacher, I work with Special Needs students all the time. I work with other teachers to ensure modifications are met for students who need them. Heck, I myself was a Sped. student.

But, this bill introduced in Congress today is ridiculous. Democratic Rep. Edolphus Towns, who's sponsoring the bill with Republican Rep. Cliff Stearns.

These two are sponsoring a bill that would make the quiet, eco-friendly hybrids cars louder. While there have been NO documented cases of blind people getting whacked because a car ran over their ass in the middle of the road because they crossed when they thought it was safe, they are adamant that these quiet hybrids must be made noisy.

I completely disagree with this notion. Blind people are known to have an acute sense of sound. Introduce them to the subtle sound a hybrid does indeed make, I'm sure they'd be able to pick that up. Moreover, blind people are noticed by the majority of drivers when they see them.

I'd argue that speeding alone would be a bigger detriment to the blind, because the driver would have NO time to react to a blind person crossing the road who doesn't catch the sound of a car just behind a hill, then it flies over the hill and whacks 'em.

We shouldn't do this people. Assume every car was a hybrid, that would decrease the noise pollution and that'd make them easier to hear. We should be solving this purported "problem" by attaching dinging noise to crosswalk buttons when all lights are red, and not be for looking ways to enhance out noise pollution constantly by keeping cars loud.

Places like big inner cities don't need to add noise pollution back they've lost from people embracing hybrid cars, trucks, and eco-friendly buses. The buses in NYC that are eco-friendly are remarkably quiet from my experience.