But, hey, we’re saving the planet, right?
Silent but Deadly: Study Shows EVs ‘Hit Pedestrians at Twice the Rate of Petrol or Diesel Vehicles’
Electric vehicles collide with pedestrians at twice the rate of their petrol or diesel counterparts, particularly in crowded towns and cities, a British Medical Journal (BMJ) survey released Wednesday shows.
The report details how electric vehicles (EVs) are statistically much more dangerous than vehicles with an internal combustion engine on urban roads due to being quieter.
Data from 32bn miles of battery-powered car travel and 3tn miles of petrol and diesel car trips showed that mile-for-mile electric and hybrid cars were twice as likely to hit pedestrians than fossil fuel-powered cars, and three times more likely to do so in urban areas.
Researchers suspect a number of factors are to blame as electric vehicles continue to confront acceptance problems in the market place:
Some of those reasons are having younger, less experienced drivers and the vehicles being quieter (however, In the EU and the US, they make artificial noise at low speed in forward and reverse). There’s no mention of a lot of EV drivers just being obnoxious jerks. The vehicles are much heavier, and inattention could cause braking issues. You’re going to tend to have a lot more in urban and near urban areas with lots more pedestrians.
Now, this is statistical, and does include hybrids. There are certainly more petrol vehicles on the road in the UK, so, what they are saying is that EVs and hybrids are hitting pedestrians at a higher per capita rate. It’s always something.
