Electric cars up to 3x likelier to hit pedestrians than ICE

I was surprised to see The Guardian run that this morning, given how pro-EV they are. As you say, it’s a very flawed piece of analysis. Not only is it a time period when sound generators were not used (not that I think they’re necessary), it’s also a time when there were very few EVs and people were not used to the idea of a quieter car.

You could spin it another way; pedestrians in cities need to be more observant. At low speed or walking, an EV in a city really isn’t any quieter than an ICE because all noise is drowned out. And once above walking pace, the tyre noise is the same, and that’s the bulk of the noise a vehicle makes coming towards you.

The statement about EVs being more likely to be driven by young inexperienced drivers is clearly rubbish too, particularly as this is from 8 years ago.

Almost all EVs on the road back then were Nissam Leafs and Renault Zoes, which were almost exclusively run as second cars by the middle aged middle classes.

It looks like hybrids were also included in the 'study', so the reason for the difference will probably actually be Toyota Prius minicabs. The drivers of these don't tend to have a great reputation for driving well, but probably more importantly, there are a lot of them driving round in city centres full of drunk pedestrians at night.....

Seems a bit at odds to say young people were driving EVs in 2017?

Anecdotally, I would say given the amount of taxi and private hire vehicles that were Prius and Auris at the time I'm not surprised they were more involved in incidents.

A lot more people are aware of EVs now, so will be more likely to expect a silent car. 2017 is a long time ago in the EV world. Also the title of this thread (and maybe the headline is a bit skewed). Surely it should be "pedestrians 3x more likely to walk out in front of an electric car"?

Could this be because EV's are more likely to be used in an urban environment and likely to have greater potential for car/pedestrian interface?

Many ICE drivetrains are pretty damned close to silent at low revs these days. Perhaps it's time they had a minimum noise level for cars in general?

Indeed but it is a junk article by an irrelevant bloke at an irrelevant job. Phil's just trying to be famous.

The problem is that humans aren't very good with gauging the scale of numbers so to the average human a 'billion' seems similar to a 'trillion' when in reality the numbers are so vastly different that you can't get meaningful results by comparing two datasets of such difference.

'Data from 32bn miles of battery-powered car travel and 3tn miles of petrol and diesel car trips '

So that is your first warning sign that Phil is a tt. The second one and the really big one appears when you suddenly realise that almost all of the ICE mileage will have been on motorways where pedestrians aren't permitted, not just that early EV usage was almost all urban and if it contains hybrid data then these were, as you say, all central London moody cabs driven by utter incompetents. Phil even notes the issue of taxis loving to hit things.

And the fact that Phil is a Chartered Statistician one would think he would have worked out the dataset issue but probably wasn't able to find a link between cars and tropical disease so just ran with this to get recognised.

It's definitely a risk for when poor people start using EVs and creeping silently around these estates where children are all being released into the street to play but that's maybe 20 years away. Until then the children are safe because Barry uses an old Saxo with a cherry bomb exhaust specifically to save the children.

Click the link to the article that the Guardian author has taken that from.

Over 40% of the UK’s youngest drivers now have EVs

Meanwhile, under 4% of those aged over 55 do

Interesting until you note that it came from a survey of just 1.300 people so is potentially meaningless.

Not only that but the journalist has created the claim out of thin air by linking two separate things and simply claiming they mean someone without any evidence or workings so I would get caught by it.

EV drivers will be younger just because the oldest drivers in the U.K. are less likely to have switched and also being unemployed won't be drawn by BIK. What that doesn't mean is that new drivers and under 21s, that classic crashing age group are hurling themselves into EVs as is being extrapolated by the author. It just means that more middle aged people are buying EVs and they actually tend to be the safer drivers than the oldest and the youngest.

Hmm, maybe its some of the anti EV frothers doing an Emily Davison and throwing themselves under EV's ?

Its likely bks as an article, but of course if there is no audible clue there is a vehicle approaching when at low speed (at higher speeds I cant tell any difference as its all wind and tyre noise anyway) and people are relying on that and not a combination of senses, then it will happen.

The sound generators do work, there is a Taycan a few doors down and that makes a sort of space age hum, will take that over the other neighbours diesels to be honest.

Hopefully people will adapt and have a mental process that involves using sight as well as sound to judge whether it is safe to cross, the number of times I have had someone step out when on a bicycle is quite amazing, big lump on a bike with a hi viz top on, usually lights flashing and still dont see you.

This may be down to increased Smartphone ownership as well, I pass a secondary school on the way to work and even in a noisy bright red car they dont see you, often looking at their screen, sometimes with headphones in.