Pedestrians are TWICE as likely to be hit by battery-powered vehicles than petrol or diesel ones, study finds

May 22, 2024

24 5 minutes read

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Electric cars are much quieter than petrol or diesal vehicles
Concerns have been raised they pose more of a safety hazard to pedestrians

Pedestrians are twice as likely to be hit by electric or hybrid cars as petrol or diesel vehicles, warns new research.

And the risk is three times higher in towns and cities, according to the study of road casualty statistics in Britain.

Measures need to be taken to reduce the risk amid the drive to phase out fossil-fuelled vehicles to reach ‘Net Zero’ environmental targets, say scientists.

Road traffic injuries are currently the leading cause of death among children and young people – and one in four road traffic fatalities are pedestrians.

Amid the ongoing shift to electric and hybrid cars, concerns have been raised that such vehicles may pose more of a safety hazard to pedestrians than fossil-fuelled cars because they are quieter.

Pedestrians are twice as likely to be hit by electric or hybrid cars as petrol or diesel vehicles, warns new research (stock image)

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The risk is even greater in urban areas where background ambient noise levels are higher, say safety experts.

Researchers compared the differences in pedestrian casualty rates for every 100 million miles of road travel in Britain between electric and hybrid and fossil-fuelled cars, using Government road safety statistics.

The team estimated annual mileage from National Travel Survey (NTS) data.

The figures only started including hybrid as a vehicle fuel type in 2013.

An archiving glitch precluded uploading relevant data since 2018, so the period studied was from 2013 to 2017.

A total of 32 billion miles of electric and hybrid vehicle travel and three trillion miles of petrol or diesel vehicle travel were included in the analysis.

There were 916,713 casualties from reported road traffic collisions in Britain between 2013 and 2017.

Of those, 120,197 were pedestrians, 96,285 of whom were hit by a car or taxi.

Three-quarters of the pedestrian casualties, 71,666 (74 per cent), had been hit by a car or taxi powered by petrol or diesel.

Amid the ongoing shift to electric and hybrid cars, concerns have been raised that such vehicles may pose more of a safety hazard to pedestrians than fossil-fuelled cars because they are quieter

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Around one in 50, 1,652 (two per cent), had been hit by an electric or hybrid vehicle.

But in nearly one in four of the pedestrian casualties, 22,829 (24 per cent), the vehicle type code was missing, according to the findings published online by the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.

Study author Professor Phil Edwards said most collisions occurred in urban areas, a greater proportion of which involved electric or hybrid vehicles (94 per cent) than petrol or diesel vehicles (88 per cent) compared to six per cent and 12 per cent, respectively, in rural areas.

Based on the figures, the research team calculated that between 2013 and 2017, the average annual casualty rates of pedestrians per 100 million miles of road travel were 5.16 for electric and hybrid vehicles and 2.40 for petrol and diesel vehicles.

Prof Edwards said: ‘This indicates that collisions with pedestrians were, on average, twice as likely with electric and hybrid vehicles as they were with petrol and diesel vehicles, and three times as likely in urban areas than in rural areas.’

The research team suggested that younger, less experienced drivers are more likely to be involved in a road traffic collision and are also more likely to own an electric car, possibly accounting for some of the observed heightened risk.

Prof Edwards, of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said: ‘More pedestrians are injured in Great Britain by petrol and diesel cars than by electric cars, but compared with petrol and diesel cars, electric cars pose a greater risk to pedestrians and the risk is greater in urban environments.

‘One plausible explanation for our results is that background ambient noise levels differ between urban and rural areas, causing electric vehicles to be less audible to pedestrians in urban areas.’

He added: ‘From a public health perspective, our results should not discourage active forms of transport beneficial to health, such as walking and cycling; rather they can be used to ensure that any potential increased traffic injury risks are understood and safeguarded against.’

The research team concluded that the heightened safety risk posed to pedestrians by electric and hybrid cars ‘needs to be mitigated as governments proceed to phase out petrol and diesel cars.’

Scientist says Rowan Atkinson’s assumptions about electric vehicles are ‘wrong’ and ‘questionable from a science perspective’

Dr Florian Knobloch, a Fellow at the University of Cambridge’s Centre for Environment, Energy and Natural Resource Governance, said Rowan Atkinson’s assumptions about electric cars are ‘wrong’ and ‘questionable from a science perspective’.

Dr Knobloch broke down Atkinson’s essay for the Guardian into four ‘central arguments’ – and debunked three of them:

1. Atkinson implies that the life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions (including all production emissions) from electric cars are higher than those from petrol and diesel cars

Dr Knobloch says:

‘Wrong. Fears that electric cars could actually increase carbon emissions are unfounded in almost all parts of the world, as our research shows (published in Nature Sustainability).

‘Already under current conditions, producing and driving an electric car is better for the climate than conventional petrol cars in 95% of the world.

‘The only exceptions are places like Poland, where electricity generation is still mostly based on coal.

‘In a few years, even inefficient electric cars will be less emission-intensive than most new petrol cars in most countries, as electricity generation is expected to be less carbon-intensive than today.

‘The answer is clear: to reduce carbon emissions, we should choose electric cars over fossil-fuel alternatives. In other words, the idea that electric vehicles could increase emissions is essentially a myth.’

2. EVs are worse for the climate than gas cars because of the environmental impact of their batteries

Dr Knobloch says:

‘Wrong. While it is true that the manufacturing of electric cars leads to more emissions than manufacturing a petrol or diesel car, electric cars are just much more efficient to run.

‘Electric motors are simply better at capturing the energy in the battery and using it to turn the wheels.

‘Almost all of the energy in the battery of an EV goes to making the car move, while only 16 per cent of the energy contained in the gas tank of an average car powers that car forward. The majority of energy is lost through heat.

‘As a result, you get far more kilometres per unit of energy in an EV than you do in a regular car.

‘Over their lifetime, higher initial production emissions are thus quickly outweighed by much lower operation emissions.’

3. Hydrogen or synthetic fuels should be used instead of electric vehicles

Dr Knobloch says:

‘Wrong. First, it is important to understand that hydrogen and synthetic fuels are either made from fossil fuels or from electricity.

‘When produced with fossil fuels, hydrogen and synthetic would not decrease, but increase emissions. When produced from electricity (so called ‘green hydrogen’), much of the energy is lost in the conversion process.

‘It is thus much more efficient to directly use the electricity for powering a car, instead of first transforming it into hydrogen first and then use the hydrogen to power the same vehicle.

‘Synthetic fuels are even more inefficient, since the hydrogen needs to be transformed into a liquid fuel, which again requires a lot of energy.

‘The synthetic fuel is then burned in a conventional combustion engine, which is a very inefficient process in the first place.

‘As a result, hydrogen and synthetic fuels will usually lead to much higher energy use and emissions, compared to battery electric vehicles.’

4. We should pay more attention to the production emissions of cars

Dr Knobloch says:

‘Atkinson is certainly right to point out the high emissions which come along with car manufacturing.

‘When one drives very little, continuing to drive an existing car is thus often the more sustainable solution.

‘More generally, electrification of transport is not a silver bullet: We also need to reduce the number of cars per se, and encourage the use of cycling and public transport wherever it is possible.’

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May 22, 2024

24 5 minutes read