A guide dog owner says some electric vehicles (EVs) are so quiet she struggles to hear them approaching, leaving her feeling vulnerable at road crossings.
Maisy McAdam, 29, from Swindon, Wiltshire, fears she could unknowingly walk into danger with her guide dog Janey because some EVs are so difficult to detect.
The charity Guide Dogs is calling for changes to rules governing the warning sounds fitted to EVs, arguing they are not loud enough and cut out too quickly.
The Department for Transport (DfT) said requirements for electric vehicle sounds were being kept “under review” as technology evolves.
McAdam, who described her vision as being like looking through a tunnel of “frosted glass”, said navigating around electric vehicles can be a “scary” and “alarming” experience.
“When you’re a team like a guide dog partnership, you bounce off one another and you work together on everything. If I’m shocked and alarmed, so is she,” said McAdam, whose guide dog Janey is three years old.
“Guide dogs walk in straight lines until you tell them to go left or right or they’ll walk around an obstacle.
“So when an electric vehicle comes it really disrupts her working pattern and upsets her.
“If it’s really quiet and I don’t know it’s there I could potentially tell Janey to keep walking when it’s not safe to do so, putting us both at risk,” she continued.
McAdam said crossings and busy car parks can be particularly challenging.
“Many of them [the vehicles] don’t have sound fitted and even when they do, sometimes when you’re in a car park with lots of things going on around you, you can’t necessarily hear what’s going on.
“Cars can literally come out of nowhere.
“Approaching a crossing is quite an anxious situation when you’re blind. It makes me feel quite vulnerable.”
Why can electric vehicles be hard to hear?
Sound generators known as Acoustic Vehicle Alerting Systems (AVAS) have been applied to new vehicles since July 2021.
The systems are designed to help pedestrians detect vehicles travelling at low speeds and when reversing.
However, there is no requirement for a vehicle to make a sound when temporarily stationary and older electric vehicles continue to operate without the technology.
Guide Dogs calls for rule changes
The charity Guide Dogs successfully campaigned to make AVAS mandatory on new electric vehicles and for the removal of a switch that allowed drivers to disable the sound.
Now the charity wants further changes to legislation.
Pete Bungay, Guide Dogs’ policy and campaigns manager for the South West, said the current minimum sound level was too low.
“We believe there’s a problem with the minimum level of sound that’s currently set at 56 decibels,” he said.
“We also have concerns around the speed at which the sound cuts off. That’s set at 20 kph (12 mph) whereas around the world that goes up to 30.
“We also want to see changes to the MOT system so that AVAS is recognised as a critical safety system and an amendment to the Highway Code so that drivers are aware of their responsibilities to keep it maintained and functioning,” Bungay added.
An outright ban on selling purely petrol or diesel cars past 2030 remains in place, with increasing numbers of EVs being manufactured.
A DfT spokesperson said: “It’s important that electric vehicles can be detected by all pedestrians, especially people with sight loss and those who rely on guide dogs.
“That’s why new EVs are legally required to produce sound at low speeds and when reversing.”