> Except the cars aren't silent. As the article points out, hybrids are only quiet when they're running just off of the electric motor, e.g. while idling or at very low speeds. The engine in a hybrid car is a gasoline-fueled internal combustion engine just like most cars on the road and those pistons firing is noisy.
>
> Not only that, but even a fully electric car (such as the proposed hydrogen fuel cell cars) would make noise. The sound of rubber tires moving over streets is pretty distinct. That's not going to go away. The article claims that a hybrid at 35 mph is "quieter than a vacuum cleaner" but I don't exactly consider vacuum cleaners to be very quiet.

There you go with your "evidence" fixation again. When will you learn to get outraged and circulate petitions based on impassioned baseless speculation like the rest of us?

> I couldn't handle math, so I became a journalist.

True story.

> Frankly I think that linked article kind of sucks. It's a pretty good example of a reporter or editor wanting a story about the danger of something and not being able to find any proof that the something is a danger: it's not until the eighth paragraph that the writer notes there is no evidence the silence of a hybrid car is responsible for even a single accident!

One serious interjection amidst the insult humour: at LEAST it's not another story about how cell phone radiation is going to kill us all. I'm just refreshed to see something else showing up in the "evils of technology" file for once.