Electric-car noisemakers are not enough.

Electric-car noisemakers are not enough when it comes to your safety as a runner or walker on the road.

As I wrote about in the Q&A for SpryFeet.com’s “Alert and Alive” pledge campaign, electric cars are so quiet at typical speeds on residential roads that their quietness poses a hazard to runners and walkers, who do not hear the cars as they approach them.

According to the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) in 2009,

“A vehicle’s sound helps pedestrians, especially those who are visually impaired, detect a vehicle’s presence and movements. Hybrid electric vehicles emit less sound than vehicles with combustion engines, especially when powered solely by electricity at low speeds. A government study examined the crashes of hybrid cars and similar nonhybrid cars and found that the percent of crashes involving pedestrians was 40 percent higher for hybrids than for nonhybrids. The likelihood of crashing with a pedestrian was 50 percent higher for hybrids than for nonhybrids in areas where speed limits were 35 mph or slower. When performing certain maneuvers, including slowing, stopping, and backing up, hybrid cars were more than twice as likely to be involved in a crash with a pedestrian compared with nonhybrid cars. These maneuvers typically occur at very low speeds when hybrids operate mostly on electric power.”

And various car makers and third-party companies — such as the one (from EC Tunes) in a video on the Web — have been working on ways to add noise at these relatively low speeds to electric cars and to hybrid cars (which tend to run in electric mode at these speeds).

But electric-car noisemakers are not enough when it comes to your safety on the road.

No, you also have to stay “Alert and Alive” — by using your cellphone safely when out for a run or walk.

Have you ever been out running or walking and been hit or almost been hit by an electric car or by a hybrid car running in electric mode? Please leave a comment here. Thanks!

And be safe out there by taking SpryFeet.com’s “Alert and Alive” pledge!