July 25, 2008
Ronald L. Medford
Senior Associate Administrator
Vehicle Safety
Office of the Senior Associate Administrator for Vehicle Safety
NHTSA
Through Debbie Ascone
Office of the Senior Associate Administrator for Vehicle Safety
NHTSA
Debbie.Ascone@dot.gov
Re: Public Comment for Fed. Reg. Doc. E8-12041
Dear Administrator:
This is to submit the comments of the National Council for the Support of Disability Issues during the notice of public meeting and comment that is captioned supra. A representative of NCSD did not enjoy the opportunity to provide a presentation on this critical issue on 24 June. Consequently, this is to furnish timely remarks of NCSD during the window for public comments that will close in August, 2008.
The notice that appeared in the Federal Register indicated in pertinent part that presentations and/or public comments should address vehicle, people and infrastructure specific solutions to this issue. NCSD will endeavor to address each of those, to the extent applicable.
Overview of the Issue
Combustion engines for locomotion, and the issues posed by increasingly complex intersections and highway design philosophies and practices, combine to seriously threaten the safety and independence of pedestrians with sensory disabilities. As an article that will appear in an up-coming issue of Dialogue Magazine reflects, the issue of the affect of quieter vehicles on people with sensory disabilities is consequential.
Federal Highway Administration statistics indicate that an average of 5,000 pedestrians die annually on our nation's streets and 70,000 are injured. According to a fact sheet produced by the American Council of the Blind, individuals with vision impairments are struck and killed by vehicles at an alarming and disproportionate rate. The number of these catastrophic accidents will increase dramatically as our population ages and visual impairments become more prevalent, as intersections and high-speed highways become more complex, and as the number of vehicles that cannot be detected audibly also increases.
Although each death or injury caused by a traffic crash is tragic, the economic effects of motor vehicle crashes are also consequential. Your Administration estimates that in 2000, traffic crashes cost citizens millions of dollars in the form of property damage, lost productivity and medical expenses. This figure does not include the cost of pain and suffering or the non-monetary value associated with lost lives.
With the continued usage of combustion engines to motor our vehicles, and as ensuring the longevity of the environment has become a priority, even among conservatives, many people contend that the so called quiet car should be employed as a solution. The problem is that quiet vehicles may pose grave safety issues for people with sensory disabilities when crossing streets, even those who are partnered with dog guides. Sound composes an integral component of mobility and orientation skills for secure crossings. As such, to the extent that quieter vehicles interfere with the ability of people with sensory disabilities to be aware of their presence, then such vehicles interfere with pedestrian safety. This is magnified when no other external modifications to the built environment, such as, Accessible Pedestrian Signals, exist to allow a level of safe crossing equal to that of the able-bodied.
Proposed Approaches
The percentage of the U.S. population affected by a condition that constitutes a disability is expected to increase as the population ages. With more and more people with disabilities living independently in the community, and with more and older adults remaining in their homes, it is critical, now, more than ever, for communities to ensure access to the services or programs of Public-rights-of-way.
Any research conducted through the study and any recommendations that are furnished in its findings must be balanced and must take into account the view points of all parties concerned with the issue.
The Passage of Congressional Resolutions H.
Cong. Res. 235 (2006) and S. Cong. Res. 71 (2006) represent important steps toward reducing the number of deaths and injuries experienced by our citizens. These resolutions encourage states to require that those seeking a driver's license demonstrate, as a condition for obtaining such license, the ability to exercise increased caution when driving in the proximity of an individual who uses a white cane or dog guide. This legislation is supported not only by leading national blindness organizations, such as the Blinded Veterans Association and the American Foundation for the blind, but also by the Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators. These resolutions represent productive statements of national policy on pedestrian safety that, we believe, should be fully implemented through collaboration among federal and state governments and the public.
Once education is furnished to the able-bodied public, then additional solutions must also focus on what steps the disabled can undertake to ensure their own safety and independence. Of course, any steps that the disabled can undertake as active participants in resolving the issue must be counterbalanced against the extent to which state and local governments must comply with applicable civil rights obligations and the critical role they have to play in comprehensively addressing access issues. The problem is that the existing potential solutions to the issues, if any, posed by quiet vehicles are not fully promoted, implemented, funded or employed by units of government and/or the private sector.
White Cane Law
An important component of any solution that is to be studied by the Secretary will consist of reviewing and evaluating the education about and the enforcement of what are known as White Cane Laws. In some instances, statutory schemes that may fall under the rubric of a White Cane Law may possess a misnomer, as they are actually laws about the rights of people with sight or other disabilities in employment, housing, and public accommodation and liability for the access of and the damages incurred by dog guides and other service animals. Under these laws that are intended to ensure access to and the safety of people with disabilities, especially and typically, people with sight disabilities, drivers are required to yield to disabled pedestrians. Drivers are also required to exercise due caution to avoid injury even when they have the right-of-way. The problem is that drivers are often unaware of these statutory schemes, thereby, causing them to be feckless.
Additional problems with these statutory schemes, as exists in Maryland, [ see, Md. Code Ann., Articles. 27A, 30 and 40A, (Deaf, Mute or Blind), §33, [Repealed and redesignated] by Acts 2007, Ch. 3, §1 (Oct. 1, 2007)], is that law enforcement and/or prosecutors are either untrained on, or are unaware of their existence. As such, there is a continuing need to have a dialogue with the law enforcement community about the White Cane Law and to find a mixture of ways by which to educate them on its sundry provisions and to ensure they actually enforce the aforesaid.
Dog Guides & Accessible Pedestrian Signals
Working as whole, handlers of dog guides can utilize the skills they acquire at school and learn through repeated exposure to the city thoroughfares and streets to detect vehicles, no matter their noise levels. The more information that such guide dog teams can assimilate from the environment only improves their safety and ability to continue to function as a partnership in independence. With the quieter nature of vehicles, the crossing of dog guide teams across thoroughfare can even pose a challenge from time to time. To address this issue and concern, several schools that train and place dog guides with the vision impaired have purchased quiet vehicles to utilize as simulations during traffic training.
This is why our organization advocates the better view that all cities and states should collaborate with the blindness community to install Accessible Pedestrian Signals. With the omnipresence of APSs, which is not the circumstance presently, and the ability of dog guides to engage in what are called traffic checks, a blind pedestrian should be in as an equal level of safety to cross the street as the able-bodied public.
NCSD believes that dog guides and APSs comprise viable solutions, or at least, a set of viable solutions, to this issue. To address this issue in a way that ensures more secure street crossings and that tackles the under-girding problem of access in navigating communities, NCSD agrees with the principles to the final report of the Public Rights-of-Way Access Advisory Committee.
Modification to Vehicles – Minimal Sound Standards
The organization that has been a leader on the issue of quiet cars, the National Federation of the Blind (NFB), contends that the potential solution to this issue is safety-based, that is, modifications to vehicles such that they omit some basic level of noise.It is curious that the NFB of Maryland successfully advocated the passage of state legislation to study the issue of quiet vehicles. The Maryland legislation that was recently enacted would establish a taskforce to study the issue of quiet vehicles, specifying that task force members are not required to specify certain technology that manufacturers must employ to meet recommended noise levels as to supposedly eradicate the issue posed by quiet vehicles.
Admitting that the data on which he captured his analysis may understate the fatality rates of the blind by quieter vehicles, a researcher named, Christopher Hogan, Ph.D., who issued a report that evaluated whether quiet vehicles kill more pedestrians than other vehicles, stated that he “found no evidence to support the hypothesis that hybrids are more dangerous than other cars, either to blind pedestrians or to pedestrians in general.” He also concluded that, the harm caused by quieter vehicles, if at all, should be the focus of any study, but that “Congress should move with caution in mandating noise-making or other devices on hybrid and electric vehicles.”
While his report is not supportive of the perspective of the blind on this issue, it does seem well-researched, and NCSD does believe it emphasizes a good point that further study is required. The question consists of what research should be conducted and what the ultimate goal of that research should be in terms of a standard or approach to address the issue of quiet vehicles.
Another national advocacy non-profit, the American Council of the Blind, posits it comprises a leader on this issue, supporting the advocacy of the NFB for a national study and approach to the issue of quiet vehicles.
NCSD consequently disagrees that quieter vehicles cause no greater problem than other vehicles. The report provides no commentary on how people with sensory disabilities, especially those with sight disabilities, ambulate the thoroughfares either with a white cane or a dog guide. As noise that emanates from vehicles is likely to compose a major factor in safe crossings as most cities either lack or have undertaken little action towards the installation of Accessible Pedestrian Signals, the extent to which quieter vehicles cannot be detected by the sight disabled comprises a legitimate issue and barrier to secure crossings. That being stated, this does not logically mean that vehicles should be augmented to omit more noise.
This also notes that, if the route the study is to undertake is that of augmentation to vehicles, then a clear concern exists on how increased noise by vehicles will affect the broader community. It would be easy to surmise that most people desire quiet, and not louder, communities in which to reside.
This additionally declares that the leaders of the blindness advocacy organizations referenced in this comment would behoove themselves to study the multi-year, if decade, struggle to have seat belts installed in vehicles. Even if the study finds that vehicles should be augmented to omit increase noise at some basic level of output; this does not mean apriori that the vehicle industry will accept this without significant additional advocacy, including, possible litigation.
NCSD thusly recommends that the study focus its research and its ultimate findings on the extent of the problem and how the existing legal framework and modification of the built environment can be strengthened to address any safety concerns posed by quieter vehicles and all vehicles in general.
Conclusion
If not addressed in a comprehensive way that balances the interests of the able-bodied and all facets of the disability civil rights movement, then this issue will continue to pose grave concerns about the continued and viable independence of people with sensory disabilities in the community. As an organization that represents the interests of a range of people with disabilities, including, people with vision impairments, we are eager to engage in dialogue and collaboration with decision makers and public administrators to promote the development of sound public policy that can address these important safety issues. NCSD supports the study by the Secretary, but the first conclusions arrived at by the said study should neither be the augmentation of vehicles nor the creation of a standard that would require those with sensory disabilities to purchase and rely on additional adaptive equipment. NCSD agrees with the question proposed in an Op.-Ed. Published in the Braille Forum regarding forcing blind people to carry additional gadgets about their personages as a solution to quiet vehicles. The author rhetorically propounds the following: “Why should we blind people have to carry a venerable plethora of gadgets just to get the same information everyone else can get without them?” It is axiomatic that when seeking to address an issue, no new means or mandates should be employed and instituted to address said problem. Issues do not exist in separate and divergent spheres. The problem is that myriad solutions currently exist to address this issue. For instance, a useful set of guidelines for highway safety programs could be reviewed during the course of the study to evaluate the success of states, if any, with doing driver education related activities and initiatives, especially, those targeted at drivers’ knowledge of the rights of pedestrians with disabilities. NCSD consequently urges that, to the fullest extent possible, the approaches that are proposed supra be an integral part of the study.
NCSD constitutes a non-profit, IRS registered 501(c) (3) organization, dedicated to educating about the abilities of and advocating for the full participation of people with a wide range of disabilities. The board of NCSD is composed of myriad attorneys and other professionals with disabilities who can furnish valuable comment as the study progresses forward. Please do not hesitate to telephone me at (410) 241-6745.
Sincerely,
Gary C. Norman, Esq.
CC: Jason Perry, President
National Council for the Support of Disability Issues
Trish Fink, Executive Director
NCSD
Pat Sheehan, President
American Council off the Blind of Maryland, and
Board Member of the ACB
Cecelia Warren, Vice President
Maryland Area Guide Dog Users, Inc.
Am. Council of the Blind, Pedestrian Safety Fact Sheet, http://www.acb.org/pedestrian/factsheet-copy1.html (Visited July 21, 2008)
See, Letter from Gary C. Norman, Esq., Vice President, legal Counsel and Spokesperson, National Council for the Support of Disability Issues to Marcia A. Ways, Taskforce on Clean Air & Energy Policy (Dec. 2007), http://www.ncsd.org/Newsletter/quietcars.htm (Visited July 17, 2008)
Dona Sauerburger, Rules of the Road, Metropolitan Wash. Orientation & Mobility Assoc. News’l. (Sept. 1999), http://www.sauerburger.org/dona/roadrules.htm (Visited July 17, 2008)
Public Rights-of-Way Access Advisory Committee Final Report (Jan. 2001), http://www.access-board.gov/prowac/commrept/index.htm (Visited July 17, 2008)
Nat’l. Federation of the Blind, Res. 2003-05, as reprinted in The Braille Monitor (Aug.-Sept. 2003), http://www.nfb.org/Images/nfb/Publications/bm/bm03/bm0309/bm030910.htm (Visited July 17, 2008)
Christopher Hogan, Ph.D., Analysis of Blind Pedestrian Deaths and Injuries from Motor Vehicle Crashes, 2002-2006 (Apr. 21, 2008), http://priuschat.com/forums/attachments/prius-main-forum/9524d1212108122 (Visited July 17, 2008)
Monroe County Council of the Blind » Update on Quiet Car Legislation, http://mccbonline.org/?p=42 (Visited July 17, 2008)
Michael Byington, Blind-Borgs, The Braille Forum (Feb. 2007), http://www.acb.org/magazine/2007/bf022007-5.html (Visited July 17, 2008)
Uniform Guidelines For State Highway Safety Programs, http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/nhtsa/whatsup/tea21/tea21programs/402guide.html (Visited July 17, 2008)