I’m feeling a whole lot better about squirrels these days.
About a year ago—when I was focusing on the unintended consequences of innovation—I suggested that there was going to be a bunch more flattened squirrels littering our countryside as silent hybrids took to the road. (See here.)
After all, if a fair number of the little varmints couldn’t get out of the way of a big, noisy, internal combustion engine, what chance would they have with 1,500 pounds of rolling flashlight?
Well, this morning I read that the Japanese government has convened a panel with automakers, organizations for the blind, and consumer groups to come up with a solution to the oh-so-attractive but deadly silence of electric vehicles. (PETA was not represented, but can they be far behind?) An informal survey by the Japanese Federation for the Blind found that more than half of 52 respondents were terrified by hybrids.
One solution is to make the automobile sound again like a good old-fashioned gas-guzzler--sort of like a food processor adding back the taste of French fries chemically after stripping the potatoes of their original taste in a high-speed production process.
A much better solution being contemplated is to have the engine make a faint musical sound, like a cellphone ringtone.
Imagine, gents, bombing into the parking lot at work in your environmentally-sound (and definitionally wimpy) hybrid with the subtle overtones of Thin Lizzy’s The Boys are Back in Town. How about arriving at your college reunion with the faint trace of Steely Dan’s My Old School?
Like your phone, your automobile could reflect your every mood.
The blind win. The poor old record companies win. You win.
And, of course, the squirrels win.
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