this post was submitted on 30 May 2024
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Electric Vehicles

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Electric vehicles and hybrid electric vehicles were found to be approximately twice as likely, on average, to collide with a pedestrian than internal combustion engine vehicles (press.psprings.co.uk)
submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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During 2013–2017, casualty rates per 100 million miles were 5.16 (95% CI 4.92 to 5.42) for E- HE vehicles and 2.40 (95%CI 2.38 to 2.41) for ICE vehicles, indicating that collisions were twice as likely (RR 2.15; 95% CI 2.05 to 2.26) with E-HE vehicles. Poisson regression found no evidence that E-HE vehicles were more dangerous in rural environments (RR 0.91; 95% CI 0.74 to 1.11); but strong evidence that E-HE vehicles were three times more dangerous than ICE vehicles in urban environments (RR 2.97; 95% CI 2.41 to 3.7). Sensitivity analyses of missing data support main findings.

  • "Pedestrian safety on the road to net zero: cross-sectional study of collisions with electric and hybrid-electric cars in Great Britain". Phil J Edwards, Siobhan Moore, Craig Higgins. 2024-05-21. J Epidemiol Community Health.
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[–] [email protected] 12 points 5 months ago (3 children)

More pedestrians are injured in Great Britain by petrol and diesel cars than by electric cars, but compared with petrol and diesel cars, electric cars pose a greater risk to pedestrians and the risk is greater in urban environments.

I don’t understand this statement. More pedestrians are injured by gas cars but electric cars are more dangerous?

One plausible explanation for our results is that background ambient noise levels differ between urban and rural areas, causing electric vehicles to be less audible to pedestrians in urban areas. Such differences may impact on safety because pedestrians usually hear traffic approaching and take care to avoid any collision, which is more difficult if they do not hear electric vehicles.

This makes some sense. My car is just a hybrid but plenty of times I’ve had people just slowly walking in front of me in a parking lot. They can’t easily hear my car at that lower speed as far as I can tell. And full electric would be even quieter.

It’s interesting though. No easy solution is immediately coming to me, other than pedestrians getting more and more used to cars not making any sound.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 5 months ago (1 children)

More pedestrians are injured by gas and diesel cars because most cars in the UK are gas or diesel.

The UK has less EVs, but they injure pedestrians at a higher rate than gas cars.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (4 children)

less EVs

*fewer EVs.

You can't drive half a car :)

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago

You can't drive half a car

Motorcycles would like a word.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

But can I get a licence for my pet bee? Eric the half a bee.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

More pedestrians are injured in Great Britain by petrol and diesel cars than by electric cars, but compared with petrol and diesel cars, electric cars pose a greater risk to pedestrians and the risk is greater in urban environments.

I don’t understand this statement. More pedestrians are injured by gas cars but electric cars are more dangerous?.

If I understand it correctly, the reason is because there are more ICE cars than EVs and H-EVs. In absolute numbers, this makes it so that ICE vehicles collide with the most pedestrians, but, per vehicle, EVs and H-EVs collide with the most pedestrians.

No easy solution is immediately coming to me, other than pedestrians getting more and more used to cars not making any sound.

I've heard some newer EVs and H-EVs emit sounds (usually some sort of whirring sound) to alert pedestrians. Keep in mind that the data in this study was from 2013-2017. There have been some innovations made to mitigate this issue since then.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

We have "whistlers" to supposedly give the deer/other animals warning a vehicle is approaching, maybe add a speaker system that just makes ICE sounds

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

Ideally we would be able to keep the benefit of quieter streets and parking lots though. Maybe there’s no getting around it