New vehicle safety concerns: braking, driving, hearing hacks
New cars and trucks, whether gas, electric or hybrid, are equipped with an increasing supply of standard safety features. Side-view and rear-view cameras are invaluable driving aids and are manufacturer marketing favorites. Blind-spot and collision warning alarms likewise help navigate the automotive chaos and get equal billing from carmakers.
But several additional vehicle safety circumstances warrant further attention, including Bluetooth applications, one-pedal driving in electric vehicles and hybrids and head-up displays.
In 2017, the Hearing Aid Act was passed, allowing adults with perceived mild to moderate hearing loss to purchase hearing aids without needing a prescription or professional fitting. Five years later, the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) began to allow over-the-counter hearing aid sales directly to consumers in retail stores and online.
In my more than five years of wearing hearing aids, I’ve worn a traditional brand, Oticon, and my current OTC brand, Elehear. Both styles have Bluetooth capabilities. With a few adjustments, directions from a mobile phone app, music, podcast content and answering phone calls hands-free are all available via the hearing aid functionality.
The use of two wireless earbuds while driving isn’t legal, but what about hearing aids? Queries about the topic to the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) and the California Highway Patrol received prompt, professional responses.
Officer Adib Zeid of the California Highway Patrol in Vallejo forwarded the following:
“Bluetooth hearing aids are generally legal and acceptable while driving because they are medical devices that enhance hearing. The concern with using the Bluetooth function to take a call or listen to audio while operating a motor vehicle would be that it can become a cognitive distraction or it may inhibit the wearer’s ability to hear a siren or horn from an emergency vehicle or a horn from another motor vehicle.”
“California Vehicle Code 24700 states, ‘A person operating a motor vehicle or bicycle may not wear a headset covering, earplugs in, or earphones covering, resting on, or inserted in, both ears.’ While hearing aids are exempt under subsection (e), the purpose of that vehicle code is to mitigate the use of headphones, allowing drivers to be able to hear what is happening around them. Driving depends on multiple layers of perception, with auditory awareness being a huge aspect of that.”
Another under-examined area is the limited or non-existent usefulness of head-up display systems while wearing polarized sunglasses.
Polarization lenses reduce glare reflected from water, snow and road surfaces, enhance visual clarity and contrast and provide comfort.
But Head-Up Displays (HUDs) also utilize light polarization techniques and it conflicts with the same sunglass characteristics and makes the HUD display invisible.
Solutions include specialized products like NuShield DayVue, anti-glare and anti-reflective films, that can be applied to some HUD areas for use with polarized sunglasses. Some manufacturers now also offer different technologies that don’t conflict with polarization. Some retailers also sell BMW-branded sunglasses that don’t block HUDs on BMWs.
One additional, albeit unrelated concern, is how braking systems work in electric vehicles. Utilizing one pedal driving or regenerative braking is standard in many electric vehicles and hybrids. It allows accelerating and decelerating primarily with only the accelerator pedal.
When a driver’s foot is lifted off the pedal, the electric motor reverses its function and acts as a generator. Kinetic energy is converted into electricity and it’s stored in the battery. The process slows down the vehicle without using the traditional brake pedal.
In most vehicles equipped with one-pedal driving, the brake lights are designed to illuminate when the driver releases the accelerator pedal. But how efficiently the system works varies among manufacturers and remains an industry concern.
James Raia is a syndicated automotive columnist in Sacramento. He contributes business, lifestyle, sports and travel articles to several print and online publications. Email: james@jamesraia.com.