Overview
- Published in Nature Communications, the University of Leeds study analyzed Great Britain’s police-reported STATS19 data from 2019 to 2023.
- Per mile driven, pedestrian casualty rates were 57.8 for electric vehicles and 58.9 for non-electric cars, indicating no meaningful difference.
- Pedestrian injuries in EV crashes were no more severe than in collisions with conventional cars, despite EVs’ greater weight and the introduction of AVAS sound requirements in 2019.
- Hybrids recorded a higher casualty rate of 120.14 per billion miles, which the author suggests reflects heavy private-hire use concentrated in urban areas.
- Large SUVs were linked to a greater likelihood of severe pedestrian injury, prompting calls to address vehicle size and to compare cars with similar safety-technology levels in future research.