EVs More Likely To Hit Pedestrians Than Petrol Vehicles, Study Finds (theguardian.com) 287
Hybrid and electric cars are more likely to hit pedestrians than petrol or diesel vehicles, due to their quieter engines that make them harder for pedestrians to hear. Other contributing factors include the tendency for drivers of electric cars to be younger and less experienced, and the vehicles' heavier weight and swift acceleration, increasing stopping distances. The Guardian reports: Data from 32 billion miles of battery-powered car travel and 3 trillion 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. "Electric cars are a hazard to pedestrians because they are less likely to be heard than petrol or diesel cars," said Phil Edwards, first author on the study and professor of epidemiology and statistics at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. "The government needs to mitigate these risks if they are going to phase out the sale of petrol and diesel cars." "If you're moving to an electric car, remember it's a new kind of vehicle," Edwards added. "They are much quieter than the old-fashioned cars, and pedestrians have learned to navigate roads by listening for traffic. Drivers of these vehicles need to be extra cautious."
Most vehicles on the road are petrol or diesel and these were involved in three-quarters of pedestrian collisions. But for the same distance travelled, battery-powered cars were more dangerous. The average annual pedestrian casualty rate per 100m miles travelled was 5.16 for electric and hybrid cars compared with 2.4 for petrol and diesel cars, according to the study in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. In rural settings, battery-powered cars were no more dangerous than petrol or diesel, but in towns and cities they were three times more likely to collide with pedestrians, the researchers found. Since July 2019, all new hybrid and electric vehicles sold in Europe have been required to have an acoustic vehicle alerting system that emits sound when the car is travelling slowly, but there are hundreds of thousands of electric cars on the road without the devices. "If government made sure these systems were installed in all electric vehicles and retrofitted them to older electric cars, that would be a good start," Edwards said, adding that the Green Cross Code also "probably needs updating."
Most vehicles on the road are petrol or diesel and these were involved in three-quarters of pedestrian collisions. But for the same distance travelled, battery-powered cars were more dangerous. The average annual pedestrian casualty rate per 100m miles travelled was 5.16 for electric and hybrid cars compared with 2.4 for petrol and diesel cars, according to the study in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. In rural settings, battery-powered cars were no more dangerous than petrol or diesel, but in towns and cities they were three times more likely to collide with pedestrians, the researchers found. Since July 2019, all new hybrid and electric vehicles sold in Europe have been required to have an acoustic vehicle alerting system that emits sound when the car is travelling slowly, but there are hundreds of thousands of electric cars on the road without the devices. "If government made sure these systems were installed in all electric vehicles and retrofitted them to older electric cars, that would be a good start," Edwards said, adding that the Green Cross Code also "probably needs updating."
Retrofit? (Score:3, Interesting)
"retrofitted them to older electric cars"
Yeah, good with that policy being voted through. EVs are struggling in the market already despite the EU and UK trying to game the market by insisting on percentage EV sales, just what it needs is owners of older ones to be stung with a bill for hundreds, maybe thousands of pounds to really get people onboard.
Re:Retrofit? (Score:5, Insightful)
LOL I love how the story of one or two undesirable EVs out there not selling as well as last year translates to "EVs struggling in the market" as if they don't currently make up just shy of a quarter of all new car sales in Europe, and over a quarter in China.
Q1 sales for EVs sucked this year. Just like they sucked every year (Q1 2024 EV sales are above Q1 2023 EV sales which are above Q1 2022 EV sales, etc, with each in turn being significantly lower than Q4 sales preceding them).
But for some reason this year that translated to "EVs are struggling". I wonder which of Fox's Friends marketing team managed to make that talking point popular.
But I don't disagree with your point. This won't be turned into a retrofit. No one cares enough. If we cared about the danger posed by cars lacking certain tech we wouldn't have a car made prior to the 00s on the road anymore.
Re:Retrofit? (Score:4, Insightful)
LOL I love how the story of one or two undesirable EVs out there not selling as well as last year translates to "EVs struggling in the market" as if they don't currently make up just shy of a quarter of all new car sales in Europe, and over a quarter in China.
This. The mental inertia of the ICEV people has them at this point, looking for anything as the death of EV's, and a golden age of internal combustion vehicles ushered in, with apparently unlimited fuel that will power these things forever, no need for battery powered cars.
They said that the battery packs will die out quickly, and will render the EVs worthless, that charging rapidly will kill them.
They said that the EVs catch on fire - well no kidding - while they forgot that ICEVs catch fire every day.
Now, that EVs are killers because.. they.. are.. too quiet! They are running out of excuses at this point.
Meanwhile, just like solar and wind power, we are plugging along, and they can hate on them all they want, it isn't going to stop the progress.
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We have a plug in hybrid that makes a sort of UFO sound when it's moving slowly. It's perfectly audible, but we find a lot of people don't seem to notice it. I suspect it's not a sound they associate with a car, so they don't think to look around to see us behind them. We've been trained over decades to the sound of fossil fuel cars - when they made some super-quiet ones we weren't really ready for them either (although we got used to it - most cars make a lot less noise than the old 1970s/80s clunkers).
As
Australian government has now mandated AVAS too (Score:5, Informative)
https://www.visionaustralia.or... [visionaustralia.org]
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I was about to suggest something like that as a joke, but the Australians are way ahead of me.
Natural selection (Score:5, Funny)
The pedestrians who suck at paying attention will eventually be culled and the numbers will begin to trend downwards
Re:Natural selection (Score:4, Funny)
The pedestrians who suck at paying attention will eventually be culled
Unlikely.
I am an absent-minded, introspective engineer who often goes on long walks while cogitating on technical issues.
I have been hit by vehicles in crosswalks three times (so far).
None of those accidents prevented me from reproducing.
Re:Natural selection (Score:5, Funny)
Take your kids on your walks. There's still a possibility.
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+5 Funny! I LOLed on that one!
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And even less time for some humorless AC to whoosh on a good joke.
Quickly followed by some moron with mod points who felt your whoosh was insightful.
Re:Natural selection (Score:4, Insightful)
suggest that the consequences of design oversights be offloaded on the public.
Are you encased in a tonne of metal and plastic? No? Then stop pretending you are... maybe?
We all have personal agency. When we exercise said agency to steer our fragile bodies into traffic without exercising all due care and attention... that's on the bloodbag. Not the distracted driver focusing on 20 other risks around the vehicle.
Sometimes it really ISN'T all about "me"
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drivers have a responsibility to be cautious around pedestrians.
It is an error to claim that pedestrians is the only thing the driver should be cautious of. The driver is typically focused on multiple, concurrent, risks. The pedestrian has one thing to focus on.
Who do we think has the best chance of avoiding the squish?
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Where I live the law is very clear, pedestrians have the right of way.
Just because it's law does not make it any less delusional. The road has NOT been the right place for pedestrians for some time now and pretending they belong there because reasons is just that. Delusional farkwittery of the highest order.
Where the pedestrians and vehicles intersect, the ped will lose 100% of the time. It really is time to stop pretending it's still the 1700's out there and get serious about keeping the 2 separate
Darwin Award? (Score:5, Insightful)
*: Obviously, the blind are an exception. I'm mostly referring to the idiots walking around with their eyes buried in a screen.
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Seriously, if you need* a loud engine to warn you that a vehicle is coming your way, maybe you should pay attention to the road you're walking around.
It doesn't matter how much attention you pay to the road ahead, if you are deaf, and the vehicle approaches from behind you.
Role of the driver! (Score:5, Insightful)
It doesn't matter how much attention you pay to the road ahead, if you are deaf, and the vehicle approaches from behind you.
^ This!
One cannot rely on the sense of a pedestrian: unlike drivers who need to pass medical requirement (decent eye sight and hearing), the pedestrians could have any from a range of disabilities.
Drivers should not presume that pedestrian are able to detect them, and drivers are the ones that need to pay attention.
But as TFS mentions, EV drivers tend to be younger and thus sadly less experienced and might miss that point.
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How do these oblivious pedestrians deal with bicycles coming up behind them then?
Re:Role of the driver! (Score:5, Insightful)
How do these oblivious pedestrians deal with bicycles coming up behind them then?
I have much greater situational awareness when cycling than when driving.
If I don't pay attention while driving, I might kill somebody.
If I don't pay attention while cycling, I might kill myself.
Cyclists are aware that we are quiet. We are used to pedestrians being oblivious to us.
The problem with EVs is that the drivers are used to driving noisy ICEs and don't properly anticipate pedestrian behavior.
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By not getting hit by a two ton car.
Also, bikes are easier to maneuver and often have ringers to warn pedestrians.
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Even for able bodied people, we should ideally design a system where one mistake doesn't result in a catastrophic accident.
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It's unfortunate that we can't do enough to improve road layouts that things like LTNs aren't necessary in some cities. Hopefully if these 1.5 million new houses get built (lol) they will design them from the very start to make sure such things aren't necessary.
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Interestingly in Japan many roads either don't have a pavement or have a very narrow, minimal one. Yet their fatal accident rate is lower than the UK, which has similar cars with similar safety features, but much wider and more consistent pavements.
The main difference seems to be that Japan has lower speed limits. Also perhaps something to do with culture, although I've noticed that at least some Japanese drivers speed habitually, and have fairly heavy right feet.
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The main difference is diet.
The average Japanese isn't a lard ass and thus makes for a smaller, more agile target.
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It doesn't matter how much attention you pay to the road ahead, if you are deaf, and the vehicle approaches from behind you.
Are they blind too? If I were deaf the one thing I wouldn't be doing is be walking on the road in the way a vehicle could come from behind me. That would be a Darwin award right there.
Mind you I don't do that in general because I grew up in a place where it was a $150 fine if you were found walking on a road in the direction of traffic rather than facing the traffic. Yeah our country had laws against stupid people.
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You got a fine even if on a sidewalk?
Or your country was barbaric and didn't have modern street designs that included side walks?
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If you are deaf then it doesn't matter if it's an EV or a ICE car.
I have a deaf friend.
He's way more attentive to traffic when crossing a street than I am.
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Other contributing factors include the tendency for drivers of electric cars to be younger and less experienced, and the vehicles' heavier weight and swift acceleration, increasing stopping distances.
I am a bit surprised that a newspaper like The Guardian spins it as a matter of audio volume. In many urban areas, the speed of cars have decreased a lot, so fossil vehicles aren't all that noisy either. Person
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Thank you for the summary. I found it really stupid that city folk are going by "sound" as any sort of factor for avoiding cars. There are all sorts of sounds, all the time, you would never cross the street. Even in rural where the speed limits are high, you are far better off looking than hearing it rushing towards you in the middle of the road wondering if you should sprint across, stay, or run back. Rural, the roads are visible for far and people drive far faster.
Re:Darwin Award? (Score:5, Interesting)
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The 'loud pipes save lives' thing is to get the attention of car drivers that would otherwise not notice them coming.
Pedal bikes (well, non-electric ones) don't travel at the speed limit so presumably less likely than a motorbike to hit a car pulling out in front of them for example.
Electric cars being hit by ICE cars not looking well, there's crumple zones you don't get on motorbikes.
I don't like loud pipes but it's hard to deny they may save the rider's life from a car driver not paying attention.
Also - a
Re:Darwin Award? (Score:5, Insightful)
It certainly gets my attention when they BrBrBrbrbRRAAACCKZZcckkk down my street at 2 AM! Assholes.
Re:Darwin Award? (Score:4, Insightful)
Seriously, if you need* a loud engine to warn you that a vehicle is coming your way, maybe you should pay attention to the road you're walking around.
*: Obviously, the blind are an exception. I'm mostly referring to the idiots walking around with their eyes buried in a screen.
Many accidents involving pedestrians don't happen at clearly marked crossings where pedestrians have a clear duty to yield to motor-vehicle traffic and smart-phone zombies walk into traffic. They happen in neighbourhoods, parking lots and other places where there are no signals and people have for well over a century become used to using engine noise as a key component of their situational awareness. On top of that, in places like these, it's generally the pedestrian that's more likely to be judged to have the right of way. You can try to use the above argument of all the burdenig being on the pedestrian, not you the driver, after running over an 8 year old on his/her way to school in your completely silent EV but it's not likely to make much of an impression on a judge or jury. Also, would it really be such a world ending burden to require EV manufacturers to fit EVs with a system that generates a distinctive sound while the EV is driving? It's a simple way to provide pedestrians with a source of situational awareness they are already used to and far more effective than requiring pedestrians to just just pay more attention because having a completely silent car is now some kind of basic human right for every EV driver. Personally I welcome anything that will reduce my odds of running over a pedestrian regardless of which one of us has the right of way.
Re:Darwin Award? (Score:4, Insightful)
Where I grew up the legal burden is 100% on drivers.
Literally, the pedestrian always has the right of way in all situations and the driver has a burden in court to prove it was not possible to avoid the pedestrian if they hit someone.
What hellscape of a place are you from where pedestrians become targets that are required to dodge cars at clearly marked crosswalks?
Why have crosswalks at all?
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Seriously, if you need* a loud engine to warn you that a vehicle is coming your way, maybe you should pay attention to the road you're walking around.
*: Obviously, the blind are an exception. I'm mostly referring to the idiots walking around with their eyes buried in a screen.
Many accidents involving pedestrians don't happen at clearly marked crossings where pedestrians have a clear duty to yield to motor-vehicle traffic and smart-phone zombies walk into traffic. They happen in neighbourhoods, parking lots and other places where there are no signals and people have for well over a century become used to using engine noise as a key component of their situational awareness. On top of that, in places like these, it's generally the pedestrian that's more likely to be judged to have the right of way. You can try to use the above argument of all the burdenig being on the pedestrian, not you the driver, after running over an 8 year old on his/her way to school in your completely silent EV but it's not likely to make much of an impression on a judge or jury. Also, would it really be such a world ending burden to require EV manufacturers to fit EVs with a system that generates a distinctive sound while the EV is driving? It's a simple way to provide pedestrians with a source of situational awareness they are already used to and far more effective than requiring pedestrians to just just pay more attention because having a completely silent car is now some kind of basic human right for every EV driver. Personally I welcome anything that will reduce my odds of running over a pedestrian regardless of which one of us has the right of way.
Where I grew up the legal burden is 100% on drivers.
Literally, the pedestrian always has the right of way in all situations and the driver has a burden in court to prove it was not possible to avoid the pedestrian if they hit someone.
What exactly do you mean by 'legal burden'? Are you seriously claiming that in your country drivers are at fault for running over pedestrians 100% of the time? Now that would indeed be a 'hellscape'. If a pedestrian walks into traffic on a red light for him and a green light for you, he/she is violating a clear duty to yield to motor vehicle traffic. However, that does not absolve you from a 100% duty to slam on the breaks and do your damnedest to avoid running that person over. However, if police forensics
Re:Darwin Award? (Score:4, Insightful)
Many accidents involving pedestrians don't happen at clearly marked crossings where pedestrians have a clear duty to yield to motor-vehicle traffic
What arse upwards country do you live in where that's the case?
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It doesn't matter how attentive you are, you will always notice loud vehicles earlier and more often.
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Seriously, if you need* a loud engine to warn you that a vehicle is coming your way, maybe you should pay attention to the road you're walking around.
All sorts of dangerous equipment makes noises to warn people. If you are going to operate heavy, large, lethal equipment you just might have to put up with some safety measures.
It's just that with ICE vehicles they were so naturally loud that we didn't need mandated extra noise (well, except for certain vehicles' back up alarms ...). Now we do.
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Agreed. This is a dumb canard.
Modern ICE cars are quite quiet (unless deliberately not) and the majority of their sound output is from tire noise, which would be the same for ev's.
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What needs to happen... (Score:5, Insightful)
...is we need to remove all the warning labels for a year and cleanse ourselves of the idiots.
At one point, possibly more than a decade ago, Switzerland changed traffic laws and gave pedestrians right of way at crossings.
I absolutely understand the reasons for this but what it has led to is people imagining themselves to be wearing Iron Man suits or being otherwise invincible. They have no concept of any of Newton's laws and they think the moment the step on the street, traffic does a freeze-frame like in the movies or something.
They don't even look up sometimes and just walk. Assuming that these people depend on their hearing (and hoping very much that they do use at least their hearing), I can see how there would be more pedestrian accidents but seriously, we need to stop trying to make the world idiot proof. I'm getting the feeling the only thing we're doing with that is creating more sophisticated idiots.
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IN SOVIET RUSSIA, idiots cleanse YOU!
The drivers HAVE TO adapt (Score:5, Insightful)
At one point, possibly more than a decade ago, Switzerland changed traffic laws and gave pedestrians right of way at crossings. {...}
they think the moment the step on the street, traffic does a freeze-frame like in the movies or something.
They don't even look up sometimes and just walk.
Most of the time it's not some big highway that pedestrian are randomly jump to cross, it's the tiny Gasse in the middle of villages:
i.e. place that are designed with tiny street where the drivers have to slow down and pay attention to their environment.
Assuming that these people depend on their hearing (and hoping very much that they do use at least their hearing),
In Switzerland, the driver have a hard requirement to have a decent hearing and a good eyesight.
Pedestrians don't have such a requirement.
That's why pedestrians have right of way: they might not even have the capacity to realise that a car is coming, it's the driver responsibility to slow down and probably stop if required.
I absolutely understand the reasons for this but what it has led to is people imagining themselves to be wearing Iron Man suits or being otherwise invincible. They have no concept of any of Newton's {...}
...and drivers think they are the center of the universe and that the whole world must absolutely bend to their wants so they don't lose a few precious seconds...
You're the one driving the 2-tons killing machine, you're the one that should make sure you don't murder some blind or deaf (or just distracted) person just because you're in a hurry.
(Written as somebody who has a Swiss driver's license, drives occasionally for vacations, but bikes to work most of the year).
Headphones (Score:5, Insightful)
Doesn't really matter whether you're driving an EV or some obnoxious 3-ton truck when the pedestrians are all wearing headphones and staring at their phone as they amble cluelessly across the street.
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an EV or some obnoxious 3-ton truck
Funny. You think 3-ton is obnoxious. Some of these larger electric tanks, Cybertruck and Rivian R1T for example, are near or well beyond 3.5 tons. About the same as a fully loaded crew cab diesel powered dually F-350. And that's before you put 1000 lbs of people and shit inside.
I remember discussions on Slashdot years ago of how awful it is that selfish 'murkins with their massive SUVs were causing so many unnecessary deaths a severe injuries due to staggering weight differentials with common passenge
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I think the Cybertruck is obnoxious too. Also the electric Hummer. At least the Rivian has *some* excuse for its weight, as it is trying to be a serious truck *and* electric too.
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Doesn't really matter whether you're driving an EV or some obnoxious 3-ton truck when the pedestrians are all wearing headphones and staring at their phone as they amble cluelessly across the street.
That's a fun anecdote, but if you actually look on the street the overwhelming number of people actually do not do this.
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Doesn't really matter whether you're driving an EV or some obnoxious 3-ton truck when the pedestrians are all wearing headphones and staring at their phone as they amble cluelessly across the street.
This. We need to be real about pedestrian harm rates outside of EVs and address that first. We have some serious tech junkies who should be embarrassed with a fucking service dog and remedial walking classes given to them, not rewarded with lawsuit payouts for getting hit due to being a selfish moron.
It's been a long time since physics class (Score:3)
But I don't think weight/mass necessarily increases stopping distance in and of itself - I seem to recall that mass drops out of those calculations (with sliding friction anyway). However, practically speaking, a heavier vehicle will require the brakes to dissipate more energy (do they put heavier-duty brakes on EVs?), and I expect they also tend to outfit EVs with lower-resistance tires - both of which could increase stopping distance.
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EVs aren't necessarily that heavy. A Tesla model Y weighs around 4500 lbs. A Ford F-150 weighs between 4400 and 5900 lbs depending on trim/features/etc. There are plenty of other gas burners on the road that weigh more than the model Y.
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A model Y is not in the same class as an F-150.
Compare a model Y to a similar sized gas car, or an F-150 to a cybertruck (6843 lbs)
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Class doesn't matter. There are a lot of both on American roads. Ford probably sells more F-150s than anything else, while the model Y is probably the best selling EV in the United States. That's really the most apt comparison you can make.
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Not what the study says (Score:4, Informative)
The study actually claims that pedestrians in urban areas are likely to walk right in front of electrical vehicles, getting themselves killed in the process. Because if the suggested solution to this issue (which is to equip EVs with noise makers) actually works, then it implies that it's pedestrians not paying attention that's the core issue, not the EVs or even their drivers.
For some strange reason, the inability to hear cars approaching has never caused massive casualties in the deaf community. How on earth do they do it?
Anyway, if you thought urban environments were to become less noisy due to the switch to EVs, think again, you'll be surrounded by aural clown cars at all times. Reminds me of the old law demanding that these scary, newfangled "automobiles" have a person walking in front of them with a red flag at daytime and a red lantern at night.
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> For some strange reason, the inability to hear cars approaching has never caused massive casualties in the deaf community. How on earth do they do it?
Says you. The deaf population is only 3.6% in the US. How do you know it wouldn't be much higher without cars running them down?
The solution isn't horns. This focus on deaf people is a silly distraction. The solution is better driver training, higher requirements to get and keep a license and requiring drivers to drive slower in areas with higher pede
car tones (Score:3)
What they need to get people on board is "car tones". Your EV can sound like George Jetson's bubble car. Perhaps when you accelerate it should sound like Fred Flintstone's feet? Horse might be popular.
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Jane! Stop this crazy thing!!
So conclusion is.. (Score:3)
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Wow you intentionally clipped a pedestrian.
You're a total asshole. He could have been mentally ill, drunk, or mis-stepped.
Super prick move assaulting him. You should be dragged physically off the road and beaten by an angry mob with sticks.
Re: So conclusion is.. (Score:3)
natural selection (Score:2, Troll)
Not a great article (Score:2)
Cars hitting pedestrians, happens in basically two cases: Zombies with smartphones stepping in front of cars, and cars ignoring pedestrian crossings. It would be interesting to know what the numbers for these two categories look like.
Also, cars with combustion engines are less likely to hit pedestrians, but they don't count hybrids as having combustion engines?
Final note: at least in Europe, EVs are now required to make a minimum amount of noise at slow speeds, specifically so that pedestrians can hear th
"rate per 100m miles travelled was 5.16" (Score:2, Insightful)
5.16 per 100 millimiles. That's terrible, almost 1 every 100 feet. Or do you mean 5.15 per 0.161 square kilometers? That doesn't seem much better and even more nonsensical, if that's possible. Your use of units is weird.
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5.16 per 100 millimiles. That's terrible, almost 1 every 100 feet. Or do you mean 5.15 per 0.161 square kilometers? That doesn't seem much better and even more nonsensical, if that's possible. Your use of units is weird.
I take it you're American? Hint: the prefix "m" is not considered to be milli unless is precedes a metric unit without a space. You know it is called a "prefix" for a reason right? It needs to be prefixed to something.
Not a prefix: 1000m grams = 1000 million grams (Did you notice the space? Something isn't a prefix if it has a space)
Yes a prefix: 1000mg = 1g
This was your lesson today on grade school weights and measures. Stay in school kids.
NYC believes in natural selection (Score:2)
New York City will ticket you for trying to save lives. Even stock, unmodified vehicles have gotten ticketed already. If pedestrian lemmings navigate by listening, the louder the car, the safer it is, right? This has to be especially true as more pedestrians wear headphones, some with noise cancelling features turned on. Perhaps NYC has a right idea, let natural selection do its thing. Only those who learn to navigate among quiet cars will survive to procreate.
Phone Zombies (Score:2)
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Yeah this one time, I intentionally clipped a bike rider who was riding in an unsafe way, as I drive by, I yelled out the window, "If I was in a truck you'd be in agony right now!" /s
How does that balance with emissions? (Score:2)
The interesting question is do EVs, in total, do more or less damage to people? Even if they hit phone-zombies more often, that does not mean they do more damage, directly or indirectly.
Wake up call to valid safety issues (Score:3)
I can tell you with certainty as a Tesla Model 3 owner that I must constantly take my eyes off the road to operate my vehicle using the center console controls and display. The move to eliminate the speedometer from direct front view and eliminate as many buttons as possible including standard windshield wiper control is proving to be as expected, less safe.
This may all be swept under the rug with automatic collision avoidance to not allow the car to strike anything. We cannot have that fast enough.
Apposite data? (Score:2)
Data from 32 billion miles of battery-powered car travel and 3 trillion miles of petrol and diesel car trips
Over what period of time? I think one could argue that older data is less relevant, given the change in vehicles and the behaviour of people over the years.
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It's the wrong metric anyway; you don't want pedestrian hits per mile, you want pedestrian hits per interaction.
If you drive a million highway miles you probably have less than 10 possible pedestrian interactions. If you drive a mile through a university campus you probably have 200 possible pedestrian interactions.
I highly doubt the per-mile numbers are properly normalized. This headline is just more anti-EV propaganda.
Old and limited data (Score:5, Interesting)
This study is not conclusive, two things that jump out immediately:
Used data from 2014 - 2017 when EV's did not have mandatory noise makers for slow speed driving (now they do)
Does not have any information on the severity of the casualties - just a binary Casualty/Non-Casualty criteria - what if EV's cause more minor injuries and fewer sever injuries? This study makes not mention of this.
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Wish I had mod points this week, so I could upvote you!
Think of the children! (Score:2)
That's a rather elaborate way... (Score:2)
This is an area where the press can play a very positive role, i.e. report accurately in every case that a person is run over by an EV, how it happened, how they could've avoided it, & how others can avoid similar accidents in the future.
Young drivers? Yeah right. (Score:2)
Other contributing factors include the tendency for drivers of electric cars to be younger and less experienced,
Is it also a ‘tendency” to claim “younger” drivers represent the income bracket that can afford overpriced expensive EVs?
Guess I’m calling bullshit loudly on this claim until someone can prove otherwise. This sounds so ridiculous that even if sales numbers were there, I’d want to look at repossession and bankruptcy rates.
Think of it as evolution in action (Score:2)
People not watching where they go will die out.
nothing but falsehoods (Score:3)
"Hybrid and electric cars are more likely to hit pedestrians than petrol or diesel vehicles, due to their quieter engines that make them harder for pedestrians to hear. "
OR to put it objectively, pedestrians are more likely to violate an electric car's right of way. Not that it's even true, but it is spun for an agenda.
"Other contributing factors include the tendency for drivers of electric cars to be younger and less experienced..."
Seems unlikely to be true, citation please. Drivers of expensive cars are likely to be older.
"... and the vehicles' heavier weight and swift acceleration, increasing stopping distances."
Heavier weight and swift acceleration does NOT increase stopping distances, so citation please.
An article filled with lies to demonize EVs, what a surprise.
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Heavier weight and swift acceleration does NOT increase stopping distances, so citation please.
For the first one, F=ma is your citation. It takes more stopping force to reduce speed (decelerate) a bigger mass.
For the second one, you get to a higher speed faster. Then see the above.
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To be fair, my electric vacuum cleaner can hardly be described as quiet! Ditto the washing machine and lawn mower. Clearly white and garden goods manufacturers use the cheapest motor designs they can get away with.
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I know the difference between the white noise sound of rushing air and the whine of an electric motor. Most of the noise from mine is the latter.
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Well, a EV drive also wouldn't be spinning at nearly the same RPM as your vacuum cleaner.
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An EV motor could well be spinning 10x faster at top speed. Some of the Telsa motors go over 20K rpm.
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Usually not in the situations where there are pedestrians to hit.
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If you can take out the motor of your vacuum, and just spin the motor without the case of the vacuum cleaner, you will be surprised how quiet it is.
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We recently had a Nilfisk commercial-grade vacuum cleaner fail after acrid smoke started coming out of it. I dismantled it to see what was inside and was surprised to find that most of the area around the motor was filled with foam rubber. Despite the sound-deadening foam rubber it was still quite noisy.
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Re:Part of it is the behavior of many EV drivers.. (Score:5, Interesting)
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Alternatively, we could drop the jaywalking laws and make pedestrians the primary users of space again. If drivers did not act like they owned the road and everyone else has to watch out for THEM, they might hit fewer people.
Where I live (California) this is already the case - pedestrians are granted the right of way. Is that not true of all 50 states?... do you live in a different country?
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BS, why should a driver be a victim of the stupidity of a pedestrian?
Yes. It's called a duty of care that comes with operating heavy machinery. I live in a country where this is already the case. If you hit a pedestrian you are at fault and have to go through a complex court case to prove otherwise. If the pedestrian is under the age of 14 the court will rule summarily against you.
If you are incapable of safely operating heavy machinery in an uncertain environment you should be disqualified from operating it. That goes double if you drive an oversized small-dick compensator.
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If someone didn't "sneak" up on pedestrians with their EV or hybrid, then blat the horn, these things would be less common
Can't say I've ever seen this behaviour. Could it be that you live in a city populated entirely by arseholes?
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By habit, I always walk next to the parked cars in the supermarket car park because you don't always hear a modern car with an ICE coming up behind you either. There isn't much sound difference between an EV and an ICE in 2nd - both are mostly road noise from the tyres.