Traffic safety: Electric cars pose no greater danger to pedestrians

A major advantage of electric cars is that they are quieter than combustion engines – this leads to less noise pollution in cities. At the same time, this is also a danger: they are harder to hear, which can lead to accidents. However, a recent study from Great Britain concludes that cars with electric or hybrid drives are no more dangerous than those with combustion engines.

A team led by Zia Wadud from the Institute for Transport Studies at the University of Leeds investigated traffic accidents involving pedestrians. The researchers found no significant differences in the number of pedestrian accidents. Nor are the consequences for pedestrians in accidents with electric cars more severe than with combustion engines, writes the team in the journal Nature Communications. The assumption was that electric cars could cause more severe injuries because they are heavier than conventional ones.

For the study, the researchers related the number of pedestrian accidents to the kilometers driven with the respective drive types between 2019 and 2023. According to this, the number of pedestrian accidents with electric cars was 57.8 per billion miles driven, or 1.6 billion kilometers. For combustion engines, the number was slightly higher: it was 58.9 per billion miles driven. The researchers estimate the annual mileage in Great Britain to be around 250 billion miles, about 402 billion kilometers.

Study dispels concerns

"There were two worries about EVs and road safety," said Wadud. "First, whether EVs would increase the number of collisions with pedestrians because they were quieter than traditional vehicles. Second, where there is a collision, whether the injuries to the pedestrians would be more severe when involving an EV because the vehicles are heavier. Our results show that this is not the case."

One reason is the introduction of the Acoustic Vehicle Alerting System (AVAS) for electric cars. This emits sounds up to a certain speed, thus making the cars noticeable.

Wadud believes that the technical equipment of electric cars also contributes to greater safety. These are usually newer and also pricier, and therefore equipped with assistance systems that help to avoid accidents or limit their consequences.

Danger from plug-in hybrid vehicles

Unlike previous studies, the team considered electric cars and plug-in hybrid vehicles separately. For the latter, the number of pedestrian accidents was 120.14 per billion miles, which is much higher than for pure combustion engines and pure electric vehicles. One possible explanation, according to Wadud, is that plug-in hybrids are often used as private rental cars. This means they have a significantly higher mileage than an average car, and they are predominantly used in urban traffic, where the probability of accidents with pedestrians is higher.

Although Wadud's team did not investigate the accident rates of Sport Utility Vehicles (SUVs), the researchers indicated that the risk of severe injury for pedestrians in an accident with a large SUV is higher.

"We should be less worried about the potential dangers of electric vehicles and more about the increasing prevalence of SUVs on the country's roads," Wadud said. "Regardless of whether they are electrically or conventionally powered, these larger, heavier vehicles pose a higher safety risk and take up more space on the road and cause more CO₂ emissions over their operating cycle."

(wpl)