BILL ANALYSIS
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THIRD READING
Bill No: SJR 6
Author: Lowenthal (D)
Amended: 4/30/09
Vote: 21
WITHOUT REFERENCE TO COMMITTEE OR FILE
SUBJECT : Pedestrian safety
SOURCE : California Council of the Blind
DIGEST : This resolution calls on the United States
Congress and the President to support efforts to conduct
appropriate research and develop minimum noise standards
for new motor vehicles.
Senate Floor Amendments of 4/30/09 replace language in the
first "resolve", removing the reference to House Resolution
734 and insert: "urges the United States Congress and the
President to recognize the severity of the problem and
support efforts to conduct appropriate research and develop
minimum noise standards for new motor vehicles."
ANALYSIS :
This resolution states the following:
1.Motor vehicles designed to provide the desirable benefits
of reducing harmful pollutants and operating with greater
fuel efficiency include gasoline-electric hybrid and
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electric-only vehicles, and in the foreseeable future may
include vehicles powered by hydrogen fuel cell and other
engine designs that rely on fuels and technologies other
than the gasoline-powered internal combustion engine.
These vehicle engine designs operate or are likely to
operate with virtually no sound being produced by the
vehicle.
2.When operating on their electric engines, hybrid vehicles
cannot be heard by blind people and others, rendering
those vehicles dangerous when driving on the street,
emerging from driveways, moving through parking lots, and
in other situations where pedestrians and vehicles come
into proximity with each other.
3.Blind pedestrians cannot locate and evaluate traffic by
sight and instead must listen to traffic to discern its
speed, direction, and other attributes in order to travel
safely and independently. Other people, including
pedestrians who are not blind, bicyclists, runners, and
small children, benefit from multisensory information
available from vehicle traffic, including the sound of
vehicle engines.
4.Failure to take immediate action to ensure that blind
pedestrians can hear hybrid and other silent vehicles in
all phases of their operation will inevitably lead to
pedestrian injuries and fatalities.
5.Senate Bill 1174 (Lowenthal), which passed in 2008,
directed the California Energy Resources Conservation and
Development Commission (CEC) to convene a Quiet Motorized
Vehicle and Safe Mobility Committee to investigate
strategies to increase pedestrian safety around electric
and other quiet vehicles, however, SB 1174 was vetoed
based not on a failure to recognize the severity of the
problem, but rather the belief that federal funding for
this research was available. Although recently enacted
provisions of federal law require a report to be prepared
by June of this year on this problem, funding has not yet
been made available to conduct the research necessary to
find a uniformly applicable and appropriate solution and
to adopt national standards based upon that research.
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FISCAL EFFECT : Fiscal Com.: No
SUPPORT : (Verified 5/1/09)
California Council of the Blind (source)
JJA:cm 5/1/09 Senate Floor Analyses
SUPPORT/OPPOSITION: SEE ABOVE
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