Comparing pedestrian safety between electric and internal combustion engine vehicles.
retrospective_cohort · Level III
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 41366247.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-025-66463-8 and PMC identifier 12690075.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Vehicle electrification has become a major strategy for mitigating transport carbon emissions. Concerns have been raised about electric vehicle's safety impacts due to their quieter driving and heavier weight compared to conventional internal combustion engine vehicles. This research utilizes Great Britain's STATS19 road safety database to understand the pedestrian safety implications of electric vehicles. We show that the pedestrians are no more likely to collide with a fully (battery) electric vehicle compared to a conventional vehicle. In case of a collision, pedestrians are no more likely to be severely injured by an electric vehicle either. Hybrid electric vehicles have a higher pedestrian casualty rate - possibly related to their driving pattern - but the associated pedestrian injuries are less severe than those with internal combustion engine vehicles.