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Hybrids Safer In Crashes — Except For Pedestrians
Hugh Pickens writes writes "Hybrid vehicles are safer than their conventional counterparts when it comes to shielding their occupants from injuries in crashes with the odds of being injured in a crash 25 percent lower for people in hybrids than people traveling in comparable non-hybrid vehicles. "Weight is a big factor," says Matt Moore, of the Highway Loss Data Institute. 'Hybrids on average are 10 percent heavier than their standard counterparts. This extra mass gives them an advantage in crashes that their conventional twins don't have.' The study's findings are good news for green-minded drivers who are also looking for safety in their cars, but it's worth noting that hybrid vehicles are much quieter than gas-powered cars, posing a risk to pedestrians. "When hybrids operate in electric-only mode, pedestrians can't hear them approaching," says Moore. Earlier this year, Congress gave the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration three years to come up with a requirement for equipping hybrids and electric models with sounds to alert unsuspecting pedestrians."
So if your a hybrid pedestrian you are more likely to be injured?
If electric cars get customisable running sounds, I'll want the mahna-mahna song.
... The fact that hybrids are being labeled "dangerous to pedestrians" because they don't make noise to warn people to jump out of the way when they are jaywalking or texting/surfing on their phone while they are crossing the street.
I'm surprised that someone hasn't required noisemakers on bicycles for the same reason.
- Mike
I want mine to be nyancat!
Looking forward to reports of women crashing their cars and killing pedestrians and cyclists while downloading Adele as their idling noise.
IIHS also found SUVs to be safer due to weight advantage. This study only looks at crashes and neglects the fact that lighter vehicles tend to stop faster and have better turn radius, which helps to prevent them from getting into accidents in the first place.
When the foot seeks the place of the head, the line is crossed. Know your place. Keep your place. Be a shoe.
Heavy cars are safer for the ones sitting in them. But most crashes involve two vehicles, and the lighter one will get the majority of the damage. A 'weight arms race' is not safety.
A lot of pedestrians are walking around listening to their music at full-blast and have no chance of hearing the car coming anyways. The fault does not belong to the car in that situation.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
"The title says it all" despite rossdee's misuse of the possessive personal pronoun.
Dangerous to pedestrians? Come on. I don't have a hybrid, and I don't worry about not hearing them, because I actually listened when I was taught to look both ways before crossing!
Edward Burr
Having a smoking section in a restaurant is like having a peeing section in a swimming pool.
Why bother with adding noises. Increasingly were I am people don't care and just walk out into the road expecting a car driver to stop in zero feet, or people more interested in their phone conversations they just step into the road, or they are otherwise playing with their phones / MP3 players and not looking at the traffic. This is WITH petrol and diesel cars making lots of noise.
Having said that, adding a noise to electric cars helps the blind that walk around, there is no benefit to noise for non-disabled people.
Take Nobody's Word For It.
If you got into an accident with a tank you would fair better as well. However, if there were two tanks in an accident then get out of the way. The increasing number of hybrids on the road will soon nullify any advance trumpeted (foolishly) here.
Crazy frog is close enough right?
FRA: STFU GTFO
...for example - unless my father is really stepping on it, his Subaru is silent of engine noise from more than 10 feet away. You can hear his tires and the airflow over the body when he's farther away - but not the engine. Hell, I have a friend whose Lexus I can't tell is running or not unless I put my hand on the hood.
This whole "silent cars are killers" thing seems a little ridiculous. If this was a chronic issue, we'd already be suffering an ever growing deluge of pedestrian casualties in the ERs of the world since there are so many quiet combustion powered cars.
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I hope all cars sound like they used to on The Jetsons.
If hybrid cars are safer because they're heavier, it's misleading saying that hybrid is safer. It should be said that heavier is safer.
Just put a baseball card in the wheel. Problem solved. Plus, it makes it sound like a motorcycle!
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Why doesn't Congress give the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration three years to come up with a requirement for pedestrians to look both ways before crossing the street?
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Welcome to Roy Battys world. If the spinners don't get you, time will.
First of all, weight does not equal safety. There's enough examples out there that show that the structure of the car is the main deciding factor as to how safe a car is for the passengers. ... it's hard to beat physics ...
As for less injured, sure, if you have a hybrid that accelerates less quickly (due to weight and energy-saving driving habits), odds are it's slower in a crash, thus endangering the passengers less. In contrast, I would dare to bet that - everything else identical - the same car with the additional weight will have a longer breaking distance (causing higher risk for getting in an accident), and when crashing at the same speed, it will equal higher damage in both cars involved
good idea to make electric cars as well to generate sound and warn pedestrians of an approaching vehicle
Marcos | Negocio Rentable Con Poca Inversion
Until the batteries catch fire.
I own a third generation Prius myself, and I can attest to the fact that it is as silent and unexpected as the Spanish Inquisition. That is, until I switch on the air conditioner - that thing is just as loud, if not louder, than an idling engine in an ordinary car! Failing that, if I need someone's immediate attention, headlights work well too. I've found that If neither is useful in the situation, then the pedestrian isn't really in my way.
Of course blaming cars for not making noise is silly. Cars have been getting quieter. This is one necessary condition for increasing fuel economy, Engine noise is energy, wasted energy. Wasted energy that represents wasted fuel. A completely quiet engine is something we should strive for. Walking in traffic, like driving, is a skill. There are consequences for being unskilled. This is true in all of life. I am more concerned of the drunk teenagers driving their parents SUV who kill a family of four.
The only thing I would like to see on electric cars, maybe all cars, is the beeper that activates when a car backs up. I have been in situations in parking lots where I could not see a car backing up, and could not here the car, and almost got into an accident.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Where do most car/pedestrian accidents occur? In the city. Where are most electric/hybrid vehicles used? In the city. There are millions of gas & diesel vehicles that never or infrequently drive in the city. If you remove all of these I'll bet the statistical significance of the higher electric/hybrid vs. pedestrian accidents would suddenly disappear.
What a joke. I've been driving a Prius for 7 years. I've only "snuck up" on a pedestrian when trying. I'd love to see the scientific data on how many actual pedestrian accidents happened while a hybrid was in electric only mode. In the Prius, that's 12 MPH and under. Not a horrible speed for a pedestrian to be hit at.
I think this whole thing is a bad assumption that has just perpetuated it's way into the "common wisdom". When I drive onto my street, I slow to about 10 MPH to avoid hitting the kids running and cycling all over the place. Oddly, they notice my Prius in just a few seconds. I haven't really seen any evidence for hybrids as a "silent pedestrian killer."
If electric cars will be required to emit artificial noise pollution, this should also apply to chemical pollution. It's just unfair that our lungs don't get the toxins they are used to.
When driving a car, I rarely need to hear other cars. The only exceptions I can think of are when driving around blind corners in the parking garage and emergency vehicles.
When walking around, why would I need to hear any more than what a car driver hears? Is the responsibility not in the hands of those who have been granted a license to drive large vehicles around our earth?
It's a dumb problem (ok, pun intended), and a dumb answer to it. If pedestrians didn't have to cross streets, this wouldn't be a problem. Why not design neighborhoods so pedestrians don't have to cross so many streets, instead of solving it by making the noise pollution problem worse?
I'd like to see cities use the 3rd dimension more. Have all buildings be at least 3 stories, and close enough to be connected with walkways. Pedestrians could navigate the entire city above street level. Could also have tunnels, which might be better for places with rough weather. Could add a 4th story, putting bike routes on a level of their own.
Of course cost is a big reason why we don't see much of that. But in the US at least, there's also a stigma against walking, this notion that the only reason someone would walk is because they're too poor, too much of a loser to maintain a car.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
Immigrations and Customs Enforcement? I'm not familiar with the technical terms of automobiles.
...crank up the Led Zeppelin!!!!!
Eventually all the people too stupid to look will die off. It's a win win since it'll strengthen the genetic pool without having to add noise pollution to protect pedestrians too lazy to look. I grew up in Michigan and we used to say look both ways and run like hell. Back there when Death Race came out they thought it was a pretty cool idea. When I moved to California I was shocked that the pedestrians would walk out into street without looking. We used to call them hood ornaments. The best thing to keep pedestrians safe is fear.
without looking for traffic get squished by the heavier than normal hybrids?
The problem solves itself, as such people spend less time walking in traffic and more time in hospital (or in a coffin).
With a plus side for the cyclists that those idiots who step out in front of them because they aren't looking will actually get hit by something capable of doing far more damage to the pedestrian and hence providing more of an incentive to not be an idiot.
Now try to cross a street without red lights , with only a zebra crossing. Your ONLY indicator will be circulation noise. Electric car=no noise=blind person can't hear it approach.
get it now ?
This is the biggest pile of junk "report" I have seen. A stupid Prius weighs about as much as the baby Golf, the smallest car in VW range in US. My 5 series Bimmer and especially my girlfriend's Jag are heavier than pretty much any hybrid in their respective classes ... Yes there are some big "hybrid cars but they are rare .. most "hybrid" cars involved in non-pedestrian accidents are Priuses even if just by the virtue of being the most numerous hybrids on the road.and I have seen accidents involving Priuses .it's not purdy. ..
This is just another PR junk paid for by Toyota
You can keep your mah-na-mah-nah, I'm having mine make the Pacman dot-eating sound!
Hybrid drivers tend to be driving more efficiently (and thus more slowly, i.e., with less kinetic energy) to boost their economy even further. There is no way to control this factor in a scientific study, short of taking a large random fleet of drivers and equipping them with hybrid and non-hybrid cars at random.
Four door variants of specific cars tend to be safer than their two-door counterparts, due solely to driver behavior.
And I'm guessing this doesn't factor in all the accidents that occur behind a good number of hybrid drivers in California who have yet to realize what "Slower Traffic Keep Right" means.
Hulk smash hybrid.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
How about people on foot not be stupid and look around them and be more aware. If you see the car coming, it doesn't matter what it sounds like. If you don't see it coming, you won't hear much before you get run over anyways.
Sounds like something stupid.
that sound like wet farts and tiny cars that rice-boys put noisy tail pipes in to make them feel like the cars are faster. The motorcyclists claim the extra noise makes them more noticeable to cars, but if you want to be a tough guy riding a motorcycle isn't the extra danger the whole reason to ride a bike? Anyway, I digress... Normal vehicles traveling on a road where pedestrians cross (i.e. relatively low speed limit areas, not freeways) are already so quiet you can't hear them. I think the whole noise maker thing is being pushed by makers of gasoline only vehicles to add a few more $ to the cost of a hybrid and to give people who are on the fence about it reason to stay with the old technology.
OTOH, gangstas love hybrids because they make drive-bys so easy. Like U-Turn says, in a hybrid he can "really sneak up on the motherf**kers!"
Electric cars may be more susceptible to pedestrian accidents because:
a: People are not used to them
b: Combustion engine cars drown them out
Both these issues will be solved within say 10-15 years, so for the sake of silence, please keep our vehicles quiet.
Why OpalCalc is the best Windows calc
it was his duty to protect his own family,
then why is he driving a car whose chances of rolling over are orders of magnitude higher than a regular sedan?
To play Devil's Advocate, there is a rational reason for doing so.
There is an elevated risk of rollover with an SUV, which I can mitigate as a driver by changing my driving style, and driving more defensively. A SUV helps me drive defensively by increasing visibility around me. Those are factors that I, as a driver, can control. However, I can't control what other drivers will do or the type of vehicle that will hit mine in an accident. Therefore, to mitigate that risk, I'll drive a larger vehicle that will provide more protection in an accident. Two problems are solved here.
To go the opposite, way, driving a smaller car to manage the rollover risk decreases my ability to drive defensively (lower visibility) and decreases my chances of survival in a collision. One problem is solved, and another made potentially worse.
In reality, taller vehicles have lower visibility of nearby objects (guardrails, pedestrians, cyclists, curbs, fire hydrants) because of the correspondingly higher hood, extended cargo bed and high window. This is made even worse by styling decisions, since many trucks have protruding hoods, whereas cars typically have sloping bonnets.
Higher vehicles have no significant difference in visibility over distance, since terrain and obstructions are the primary limiting factors. A foot or two of height makes very little difference on a curvy, hilly road jammed with other cars, running between trees or buildings. The taller driving position does provide a "gut feeling" of safety (having the high ground is inherently reassuring, especially to apes accustomed to swinging from trees) but does not confer any advantage over a properly adjusted driver's seat in a sedan. It's your position relative to the windows that makes the difference.
Defensive driving is something you can (and should) do in any vehicle, and the superior handling and braking of cars make it that much more likely that you will avoid whatever you see.
What happens if both cars in an accident are hybrid ?
A closed mouth gathers no foot.
The people who buy hybrids are more likely to drive most in slower and heavier city traffic. Hybrid owners, are usually old people, of less than average intelligence, with money to waste.
Hybrids also make little sense for long distance driving, which usually goes with higher road speeds. In fact hybrids make no sense at all, when full vehicle lifecycle cost (both environmental, and financial) is considered. They exist primarily because of environmentalists, and reactionary politicians, who lack the knowledge or brainpower to understand such things. Yes, there may be a small fuel economy benefit for city driving, but the added environmental cost of battery pack, battery pack replacement, etc. makes them uneconomic in the long term, and a waste of resources to build.
Buy a diesel instead, if you care about fuel economy, and a vehicle with a robust, long life engine. Nearly 60% of new passenger cars are diesel powered in the most developed countries. This is for a good reason. Nothing beats the thermal efficiency of a good diesel engine. With increased use of turbocharging, and electronic management systems, diesels can be further downsized, and have somewhat improved fuel economy.
Hybrids are 10% *heavier* on average? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. Isn't the whole purpose of a hybrid to get better gas mileage? Shouldn't one of the first design criteria for a hybrid be a decrease in weight, to increase fuel economy?
Seriously... that's what it is. Bullshit. While the electric engine itself is silent, when the vehicle is moving, the tires make PLENTY of noise on the pavement. Also, with some newer cars with conventional engines, you can just *BARELY* hear the engine running anyways because it runs so quiet, and the first clue that a pedestrian is going to get that there is a car there is, again, the sound of the tires on the road.
This whole idea of needing to add noise to electric cars so people can hear them is the very antithesis of why the muffler was invented for regular automobiles.
You can't easily hear all types of bicycles either... should artificial noisemakers be added to them?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Since most of the extra weight of a hybrid is in the batteries I call BS since I do not think the batteries protect you in any way. Why does everybody look at statistics and automatically think that they can provide an explanation? This was not a controlled experiment so you really cannot come to a conclusion why.
Maybe Google or Yahoo should step in and sell ADds to these devices? :DD
Lucky you. I'm a cyclist (Lndon, UK) and electric vehicles are far too quiet for my liking. It's not that they're silent, it's just that relative to the buses, cars, and trucks I share the road with they effectively are. Long term I'd love it if all vehicles were as quiet as current electrics but ATM they're so quiet relative to the rest of my cycling environment theyre effectively inudible.
The article obviously failed to look at the total -eh- impact of hybrids killing pedestrians: The people who text while walking and cross the street without looking are also the people who text while driving and turn right without checking for bicycles.
So, overall pedestrian-killing hybrids might make the road safer for bicycles and pedestrians.
All of the future cars in shows from the Jetsons to Bladerunner have made some cool "futuristic" sound. I always thought it was silly. I was wrong. Because apparently, in the future, cars will be required to made "futuristic" sounds.. Who would have guessed?
I'm just "this guy", you know?
They should play the Jaws theme when in electric-only mode.
"When hybrids operate in electric-only mode, pedestrians can't hear them approaching."
I've said it before in everyday conversation, and I'll say it again here: humans have two small things called "eyes" in their head which can alert them to approaching traffic. Doesn't anyone "look both ways before crossing the street" anymore? The cars may be quiet, but they're not invisible.
By this logic, pedestrians should be fined for listening to music on headphones because it constitutes "hazardous behaviour".
for failure to yield to a pedestrian while driving down University Ave at the UCB campus. Two idiots stepped out into the street in the middle of the block right in front of me without looking- I guess their conversation was more important than preserving their lives. I slammed on the brakes, leaned on the horn, and they jumped about 10 feet into the air. The noise drew the attention of a cop who was across the street. He wrote me a ticket for failure to yield even after I explained to him that had I actually failed to yield the idiots would have been under my car instead of across the street sipping cappuccino. Arguing with cops is as much a waste of time as arguing with idiots.
My car was not a hybrid or electric. The problem was not car sound, it was idiots not looking before they stepped into the street. Nothing you do to cars will change that sort of behavior. People who run over such people should be handed awards for service to the human race for removing those defective genes from the pool.
nanny, disensetised sad state of world we live in when LOOKING is not enough and we need sonar pings, violent screecher noisemakers to tell us a car is on the road. WTF?? ROAD= Car's Domain. Sidewalk = Pedestrian domain. So if I have to make sure a driveway is clear and safe to drive on why cant pedestrians OPEN their eyes when entering MY CAR'S domain. I mean my subwoofer can give a run for the money of any industrial airhorn mounted on trucks so I don need noisemakers but maybe thats the solution. Equip all electro-pissant hybrids with awesome amps and subs and quality sound system and you wont need noisemaker devices. But if you die because you crossed the road in front of an electric car that you DIDINT HEAR. Well thats just natures way of culling the gene pool. :)
"a requirement for equipping hybrids and electric models with sounds" - I can see it coming, otherwise quiet flying cars making silly sounds as they travel a la The Jetsons.
Probably not much different results from an accident where two non-hybrid cars are involved.
Cleverly disguised as a responsible adult.
i want my hybrid to sound like a galloping horsie
After quickly reading the report, it seems that pedestrians are more likely to be hit when a hybrid is going very slow, like when turning a corner in a low speed area. The blanket solution is to have EV making sound all the time, which to me is ridiculous. However, maybe it is worth emitting sound when the brake is freshly released and the EV is speeding up. Maybe a pedestrian can be alerted to the fact that the previously stopped EV is not stopped anymore and should start running for their lives!
Needless to say, a fast running car makes tons of sound from it's tires and other crap -- EV or not. A stopped EV is much like a parked car, and it might be worth knowing it has started to roll from a pedestrian/cyclist point of view. The recommendations just show a lack of imagination, really. The recommendation could easily have been that everyone must always have loud music playing while driving. That would also be sufficient. Pump up the Volume
Tomorrow in the news: "Newer cars are safer in crashes than the average car for their occupants!". Brilliant. This has nothing to do with hybrids. The correlation is there but it also holds for most other cars that are younger than 'the average car' (whatever that may be..)
...there are so many dead deaf people lying in all the gutters.
A person with a red flag that walks in front of my car as I cruise through parking lots! sorry, been done. Can't see a reason for over 300 comments for a pretty lame story. I can't see them being 10% heavier, which models were tested? As battery powered cars have to have better crash protection because of the batteries, I'd say that it has nothing to do with weight and more because of design. As for quiet, yes, zero noise, but for the scratching of tyres on concrete, it seems quieter outside than inside!. The driver and pedestrians should both be looking out for each other. But I may be expecting too much.
There was an unknown error in the submission.
The weight thing is dumb. Of course a gas powered vehicle equipped with additional hybrid assist will weigh more, because it has a gas engine and hybrid battery. But a Hybrid that is designed purely as a hybrid and has no gas-only equivalent can't be compared, weight-wise. No way those are safer--they are tin cans, by design.
A hybrid driving in a parking lot is no quieter than a gas-powered car. The tire noise and chassis creaks drown out the sound of both electric and most modern gas powered engines when driving at low speeds. If you can't hear a car at 20 mph, hybrid or gas, then you are a Darwin candidate.
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This is junk science. 25 accidents does not make for a study.
Above 20kph, the majority of noise from a passenger car comes from the tyres not the engine/exhaust.
Listen to a modern diesel Lexus, Jaguar or Mercedes-Benz and at car-park speed (15kph) they are practically silent also. The fact that EVs/HEVs are more dangerous for pedestrians at car-park speed is simply FUD from the auto industry who are still obsessed with making IC engine cars.
Touche'
A closed mouth gathers no foot.