Rescuers Prep for Hybrid Car Accidents

mykepredko writes "I've driven a Toyota Prius for two years now and found this CNN article regarding the training required to rescue people trapped in hybrid cars to be slightly alarming. As an EE, I would expect that the electrical system is designed to be as well protected and fail-safe as possible in an accident, but if I'm ever in an accident, I'll make sure that any responders are wearing rubber gloves and boots and if any cutting is done, the roof is the only area they touch." Toyota has an accident guide indicating that if the airbags deploy, the hybrid battery pack should be automatically isolated.

Comments

Re:Wait a sec ....

[kpansky]

In Soviet Russia optional comprehends you.

Re:Sound Effects

[Tmack]

Slightly off the topic of the article, but anyway.... I know VoIP networks have this functionality built in along with other features activated when a modem/fax initiate tone is recieved, but iirc the tone itself is mainy the "hello?" or syn of the connection establishement between endpoints. If you ever notice, the tone on one side will repeat until the other side responds with a slightly different pitched tone before the two ends start negotiating speeds and protocols (the folloing sequences of tones and static). For fax connections, the calling fax will send out a beep every couple seconds that triggers the fax on the other end to stat talking. With VoIP, when the media gateways detect a fax or modem tone, the call is placed into a modempassthrough mode thats optimized for modem communications. This disables comfort-noise injection, and alters the echo-canceling on the line. I would assume the SS7 trunks of the PSTN/POTs networks use something similar.

tm