Deadly quiet: Electric vehicles twice as likely to hit pedestrians as petrol vehicles, study finds

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Pedestrians are twice as likely to be hit by an electric/hybrid car than by a petrol vehicle, a study from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine has found. The reason? 

The noiseless movement of EVs – plus high pedestrian density in the areas where they are found. 

The study lead by Dr Phil J. Edwards at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine has found a pedestrian casualty rate of 5.16 per 100 million miles driven for hybrids and EVs. 

This is more than twice the 2.4 per 100 million miles petrol-powered cars recorded. 

The study’s researchers caution that current crash statistics aren’t yet reliable enough to reach scientific conclusions, but the stats seem to indicate younger, less experienced drivers – more likely to own an electric car – are more often responsible for crashes. 

EVs could make up almost 70% of the US fleet by 2050. For now, the  Biden administration wants half of all new vehicle sales electric by the year 2030. 

Meanwhile, Google’s Waymo (the world’s first autonomous ride-hailing service) reports that their driverless cars were nearly 7 times less likely than human drivers to be involved in a crash resulting in an injury.

Read more over at Oilprice.com