Electric cars, hailed for their reduced environmental impact, hide an unexpected danger for pedestrians. According to a recent study, these quiet vehicles are three times more likely to cause accidents in urban areas than their combustion engine counterparts.
Electric vehicles, although praised for their contribution to
reduction of emissions and urban noise, still present challenges in terms of road safety. A recent British study relayed by The Guardian and published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health highlights a worrying aspect: electric and hybrid cars are significantly more dangerous for pedestrians than their combustion engine counterparts.
Increased risks in urban areas
According to researchers, electric and hybrid cars are three times more likely to hit pedestrians in urban areas than gasoline or diesel vehicles. Generally speaking, the risk is twice as high for electric vehicles, all areas combined (urban and rural).
Key number :
- 51.5 billion kilometers traveled in an electric car compared to 4.8 billion kilometers traveled in a thermal car.
- The analysis is based on 916,713 road accident victims in the UK, including 120,197 pedestrians.
- Incident rate: 5.16 incidents for electric cars compared to 2.4 for combustion engine vehicles.
The factors involved
The main reason for this difference lies in the silence of electric vehicles. Phil Edwards, professor of epidemiology and statistics at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and lead author of the study, explains: “ Electric cars pose a danger to pedestrians because they are less likely to be heard than electric cars.
gasoline or diesel “.
Indeed, the reduced noise of electric motors can deceive the vigilance of pedestrians, who are used to relying on traffic noise to cross streets safely. Besides the silence of the engines, two other elements can explain this trend:
- Vehicle weight: Electric cars are generally heavier due to their batteries, which extends braking distances.
- Driver profile: Drivers of electric cars tend to be younger and therefore potentially less experienced than those of thermal vehicles.
As interesting as it is, this study, happily relayed by various media, presents two biases in our opinion.
The first is that it only takes into account data from electric cars between 2013 and 2017. However, since 2019, the European Union has made an audible signal compulsory on all electric cars traveling below 30 km. /h.
The second bias in our opinion is that other studies have shown that a “noisy” vehicle is in fact not particularly better heard by a pedestrian or by a driver when approaching from behind.
Indeed, the propagation of sound is uncorrelated with the speed of the object that emits it. Thus, and everyone can experience it, when we are driving in traffic jams, even with the window open, it happens that we only become aware of having been overtaken by a motorcycle at the very moment when it is at our height. . And in the same way, even in a thermal car, it is very common to find yourself stuck by pedestrians who have not heard the vehicle arriving in a small street for example, if we are moving at very low speed, because in addition to the low noise volume at idle of the combustion engine in general, the ambient hubbub blithely covers the sound of the car arriving, once again from behind.
Finally, this study, although it brings the question of accidents back to the table, above all reminds us of the necessary vigilance that all pedestrians, cyclists and drivers owe each other in public spaces. Whether thermal or electric.
Source : The Guardian
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