Toot, toot: Hybrid cars might be a bit too quiet

Hybrid cars are great. They get great mileage, they help the environment, their owners love them.

And they're quiet.

Which I thought, at first, was great. After all, my husband and I live near a freeway. If everyone drove hybrid cars, maybe we could actually have a party on our back deck.

Then one day we went to test-drive a hybrid car. As we turned to leave the showroom, our salesman anxiously said, "Be sure you look left and right when you walk outside."

Why? "Because the hybrids are silent. You can't hear them coming."

We were startled. Had people actually been hit by cars in the parking lot? "No," he said. "But there've been close calls."

Wow. A car so silent you can't hear it coming.

In the months since, I've talked to friends who own hybrids. They all have stories.

"Pedestrians walking away from you in a parking lot have no idea you're there," says my friend Corey, who owns a Toyota Prius. "And frequently bicycles in traffic have no idea you're there. It requires a real vigilance on your part. And you have to learn how to honk very politely, like, 'toot, toot.'"

My friend Dory, who also owns a Prius, agrees that blasting the horn isn't the answer. "That would be rude." When she wants people to know she's behind them, "I open the window and turn on the radio."

Car dealers who sell the quiet cars emphasize what a great product the hybrid is. But they also acknowledge that sometimes silence is not golden.

"It's kind of unnerving because you can't hear the thing run," says Gary Swanson, a Toyota dealer. When customers test-drive hybrids, "you advise people they have to give a warning they're coming through. It's not like you can rev your engine."

The Honda Civic hybrid is quiet, but it's not completely silent, "because it's built on a gasoline-powered engine that will be running whenever the car is running," says Christian Betts, a Honda dealer. "You will hear it."

However, sometimes drivers "inside the car won't know the car is on, and will grind the ignition, trying to turn it on twice."

Christian finds it ironic that the quiet cars present new challenges. "It would be the first time I've ever heard that lack of road noise is a problem."

Joanne Ritter, spokeswoman for Guide Dogs for the Blind (www.guidedogs.com), says quiet hybrids are dangerous for blind people, especially those who walk with canes. Her group is training the dogs to be aware of silent cars, Ritter says and teaching owners to trust their dogs and stop.

Some organizations have suggested hybrids be built with sound effects: clicks, beeps, bells, whistles, fans. If carmakers added sound effects, it could help more than the blind.

After all, with cell phones, Bluetooth technology and iPods, more pedestrians are walking around distracted and less able to hear approaching vehicles.

Hybrids are in quiet mode in exactly the kinds of places where pedestrians can be found: in parking garages or lots, exiting driveways, stopped before turns at intersections.

Until a fix is found, if one ever is, the obvious solution is vigilance. Hybrid owners will have to drive more carefully. Pedestrians will have to be more alert. When you're on a walk, enjoy the silence. But look both ways before you cross.