Proposed bill aims to set minimum auto sound levels

Fisker Karma's recently announced hybrid sports car that generates motor noise through some external speakers might have received a good bit of derision when it first made itself known, but it now looks like it may actually be a bit ahead of the game, at least if a bill expected to be introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives ever actually becomes law. As AutoWeek reports, the bill was apparently prompted by concerns that hybrid and electric vehicles are a little too quiet, and pose a risk to pedestrians, especially the blind. To address that supposed danger, the bill reportedly demands that the U.S. Secretary of Transportation initiate a study to determine if a minimum sound level is in fact needed and, if so, require that automakers comply with it (possibly as early as 2010).