Electric vehicles and hybrid electric vehicles were found to be approximately twice as likely, on average, to collide with a pedestrian than internal combustion engine vehicles
Electric vehicles and hybrid electric vehicles were found to be approximately twice as likely, on average, to collide with a pedestrian than internal combustion engine vehicles
During 2013–2017, casualty rates per 100 million miles were 5.16 (95% CI 4.92 to 5.42) for E- HE vehicles and 2.40 (95%CI 2.38 to 2.41) for ICE vehicles, indicating that collisions were twice as likely (RR 2.15; 95% CI 2.05 to 2.26) with E-HE vehicles. Poisson regression found no evidence that E-HE vehicles were more dangerous in rural environments (RR 0.91; 95% CI 0.74 to 1.11); but strong evidence that E-HE vehicles were three times more dangerous than ICE vehicles in urban environments (RR 2.97; 95% CI 2.41 to 3.7). Sensitivity analyses of missing data support main findings.
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Wait, are the cars themselves are twice as likely to hit pedestrians, or are the drivers of the cars twice as likely to hit pedestrians?
That's a fair question regarding clarity — the authors of the study touched on this in the "Strengths and weaknesses of the study" section:
Before we can infer that E-HE vehicles pose a greater risk to pedestrians than ICE vehicles, we must consider whether our study is free from confounding and selection bias. Confounding occurs when the exposure and outcome share a common cause. Confounders in this study would be factors that may both cause a traffic collision and also cause the exposure (use of an E-HE car). Younger, less experienced drivers (ie, ages 16–24) are more likely to be involved in a road traffic collision and are also more likely to own an electric car. Some of the observed increased risk of electric cars may therefore be due to younger drivers preferring electric cars. This would cause positive confounding, meaning that the true relative risk of electric cars is less than we have estimated in our study.
The study is technically looking at the unit of driver and vehicle, rather than only the driver or only the vehicle, so the results could potentially be different if the driver and car are viewed as a unit rather than separate.