Lord knows what the poor bloke thought, when having blithely stepped off the curb he glanced up to see this bizarre apparition bearing down upon him. Some anchor work from us and a smart step back from him averted the necessity to place a position vacant advertisement.
You just can't hear the i-MIEV coming and — sad but true — you can't expect pedestrians to look when they cross. We had no less than five close low speed near-misses with unwary pedestrians and cyclists (none of whom could be credited with a abundance of situational awareness) in 80km of inner city driving.
While the Mitsubishi i-MiEV is the only electric vehicle (EV) on Australian roads at present — albeit in very limited numbers — there are six hybrids on sale locally, and most of these are almost equally inaudible at low speeds.
The exception, Honda's Civic Hybrid, uses an electric motor to supplement its petrol engine rather than the more usual converse, and quieter, arrangement.
And while EVs and hybrids remain a niche segment here, the US government's auto safety agency has found hybrids there are twice as likely to be involved in pedestrian crashes at low speeds, compared to vehicles with conventional engines.
The 2009 study by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration examined circumstances in which the vehicles were slowing down or coming to a stop, backing up or entering or departing a parking space. Some 4300 American pedestrians were killed in 2008, according to the most recent data.
The new NHTSA is researching quieter cars in relation to blind pedestrians.
"Our analysis of limited data from 12 states shows that hybrid electric vehicles do have a significantly higher incidence rate of pedestrian crashes than internal combustion engines for certain manoeuvres," NHSTA boss David Strickland has said.
The organisation is assessing requirements for vehicles to "emit a base level of sound at low speeds to provide some level of identification to pedestrians that a vehicle is approaching".
So far in Australia only the fringe Pedestrian Council has called for a "mandatory noise function" to be built into electric and hybrid cars.
But given the evident unwillingness of urban pedestrians and cyclists — even those who do not suffer impaired vision — to use their eyes, the only certainty is that the onus to find a solution will fall on carmakers.
