Electric cars more likely to hit pedestrians than fuel cars: Study

London

An analysis of British road traffic accidents suggests that hybrid and electric cars are more prone to pedestrian collisions than petrol or diesel vehicles, especially in urban areas.

Data from 32 billion miles of battery-powered car travel and 3 trillion miles of petrol and diesel car trips showed that electric and hybrid cars were twice more likely to hit pedestrians than fossil fuel-powered cars.

Why eco-friendly cars are more dangerous is unclear, but researchers believe a number of factors are to blame. The drivers of electric cars tend to be younger and less experienced, and the electric cars are much quieter than those with combustion engines, making them harder to hear, especially in towns and cities.

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Phil Edwards, the study's lead author and a professor of epidemiology and statistics at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine explained: "Electric cars pose a danger to pedestrians because they are less likely to be heard than petrol or diesel cars. The government needs to address these risks if it plans 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 drivers of these vehicles need to be extra cautious.”

It is worth mentioning that road traffic accidents are the leading cause of death among children and young adults in the UK, with pedestrians making up a quarter of all deaths on the roads.

In 2017, a US Department of Transportation report found that electric and hybrid cars posed a 20% higher risk to pedestrians than petrol and diesel cars, and a 50% higher risk during low-speed moves, such as turning, reversing, starting into traffic and pulling to a stop.

Edwards and his team analysed UK travel and road accident data from 2013 to 2017. Due to an archiving issue, data from 2018 onwards is unavailable. 

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Their analysis covered 916,713 casualties, including 120,197 pedestrians, with over 96,000 of those pedestrians being struck by a car or taxi.

Since July 2019, all new hybrid and electric vehicles sold in Europe have been required to have an audio vehicle alerting system that produce sound when the car is travelling slowly, but there are 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.

(With inputs from agencies)