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

[DonkeyApple]

TheDeuce said:

Yes it's a safety thing and is a good thing - it just doesn't always seem to work, I think purely because it's not the engine noise that many pedestrians are familiar with and subconsciously always listening out for.

Tbh I don't see any of this as a problem. Cars are changing, it'll take a while for some people to adapt to those changes, including the new sort of sounds that identify a car moving.

In the meantime time, as said many times on these threads, the drivers of EV's tend to be aware that not all pedestrians are.. aware.

As soon as there is any kind of typical urban, suburban background noise the sound from any modern, generic car evaporates into the ether.

But it's also not technically 'sound' that inhibits pedestrians but fear. All the sound can achieve is to obtain the attention of someone who will still make their decision based on fear fundamentally.

It's why pedestrians have evolved from not walking behind reversing cars to the exact opposite. There is an absolutely massive gain for the human from both waiting 10 seconds for someone and now the vehicle will bleep at the driver to stop the pedestrian can weigh up that reduced risk of having their child hit against the enormous gain of not having to wait 10 seconds and come to the very obvious conclusion that it makes perfect sense to stick their child in front of a moving vehicle where the operator can barely see and has a tendency to think no one is so dumb as to walk behind a reversing vehicle.

But these are people from the club that includes such geniuses as those who push their child buggy out into the road between parked cars to check if a moving car is coming.

The people who cross in front of cars at junctions when say the car is on green, they don't stop due to any noise as the noise doesn't represent any level of fear in itself. It'll wake the zombie element up who are just following blindly but those who make explicit risk calculations aren't inhibited. Only by physically moving the large object at them so they begin to respond.

Having EVs make sound is obviously sensible but it's not some miraculous cure and the true reality is that the more an object is programmed to give way to humans the more humans will adapt to take advantage and make those objects bow before them. Fear is a core human inhibitor. Remove it and we all change to take direct personal advantage of the new lower risk.

The moment society begins to believe that the technology in cars that allows the car to detect pedestrians and stop before them is competent then society will begin to simply not be spending any time waiting for cars. The ability for a car to progress down a road will see a shift of control to the pedestrian with the driver in the car removed from the equation.

In environments where pedestrians, on the whole, make the cultural decision to wait on pavements such as Vancouver and remote outposts of the U.K. then cars will still make fair progress along roads where pedestrians are on pavements. Conversely, in the environments where the pedestrian is the Lord God himself and born for all to bow before one's greatness or basically where large numbers of people are running risk calculation and using that to override manners, civility, common sense etc then cars will simply cease to make progress.

TfL won't need to actually ban cars from Z1 they're just going to stop working as cars the second Londoners realise they are programmed to give way near infallibly to us. . No Londoner on foot is going to stop and wait for a computer in a box that is programmed to exist as inferior to them and to stop before them. It would be insane to thick that an entire urban culture is suddenly going to stop doing what it has existed to do for over 2000 years. In the Sq Mile you already see pedestrians making judgement calls on the type of taxi. Black cab, it'll stop but the driver will get out and they will quickly have more of them to assist. Minicab? They'll stop and they won't do anything so you don't have to wait for the chap in a minicab. Go to the slightly rougher bits of Z2 and you'll see blokes on foot making judgement calls on the driver they would like to stop so they can just cross the road. Van driver, big bloke, bloke that looks like them and they'll wait but soppy looking bloke in a generic company car or a woman and they're triggered. It's the locking of eyes on the operator and just keep staring at them while you step out and they stop and give way.

The removal of pedestrian fear due to the application of competent and perfectly sensible technology to cars is one of those impending changes that is going to be really quite big. And we'll first notice it due to an idiot Londoner taking an Airbnb out in the sticks and getting mown down by someone in an older car but what starts in places like London just ripples out and the relationship between car and pedestrian will alter massively.

It's one of those things that will probably be blamed on EVs but has nothing to do with them.

[Red9zero]

TheDeuce said:

That's the bit that confuses me. I don't see why adding noise to an EV to replace engine noise, also means so many of them need to sound like an artic truck when reversing!?

Why is that suddenly a thing

There used to be a truck that went past our office every morning that would very loudly announce when it was turning left too. That is in additional to the huge sign on the back advising of its blind spot. Yet still cyclists and e-scooter riders would merrily go up the inside of him while he was turning left.

[TheDeuce]

DonkeyApple said:

TheDeuce said:

Yes it's a safety thing and is a good thing - it just doesn't always seem to work, I think purely because it's not the engine noise that many pedestrians are familiar with and subconsciously always listening out for.

Tbh I don't see any of this as a problem. Cars are changing, it'll take a while for some people to adapt to those changes, including the new sort of sounds that identify a car moving.

In the meantime time, as said many times on these threads, the drivers of EV's tend to be aware that not all pedestrians are.. aware.

As soon as there is any kind of typical urban, suburban background noise the sound from any modern, generic car evaporates into the ether.

But it's also not technically 'sound' that inhibits pedestrians but fear. All the sound can achieve is to obtain the attention of someone who will still make their decision based on fear fundamentally.

It's why pedestrians have evolved from not walking behind reversing cars to the exact opposite. There is an absolutely massive gain for the human from both waiting 10 seconds for someone and now the vehicle will bleep at the driver to stop the pedestrian can weigh up that reduced risk of having their child hit against the enormous gain of not having to wait 10 seconds and come to the very obvious conclusion that it makes perfect sense to stick their child in front of a moving vehicle where the operator can barely see and has a tendency to think no one is so dumb as to walk behind a reversing vehicle.

But these are people from the club that includes such geniuses as those who push their child buggy out into the road between parked cars to check if a moving car is coming.

The people who cross in front of cars at junctions when say the car is on green, they don't stop due to any noise as the noise doesn't represent any level of fear in itself. It'll wake the zombie element up who are just following blindly but those who make explicit risk calculations aren't inhibited. Only by physically moving the large object at them so they begin to respond.

Having EVs make sound is obviously sensible but it's not some miraculous cure and the true reality is that the more an object is programmed to give way to humans the more humans will adapt to take advantage and make those objects bow before them. Fear is a core human inhibitor. Remove it and we all change to take direct personal advantage of the new lower risk.

The moment society begins to believe that the technology in cars that allows the car to detect pedestrians and stop before them is competent then society will begin to simply not be spending any time waiting for cars. The ability for a car to progress down a road will see a shift of control to the pedestrian with the driver in the car removed from the equation.

In environments where pedestrians, on the whole, make the cultural decision to wait on pavements such as Vancouver and remote outposts of the U.K. then cars will still make fair progress along roads where pedestrians are on pavements. Conversely, in the environments where the pedestrian is the Lord God himself and born for all to bow before one's greatness or basically where large numbers of people are running risk calculation and using that to override manners, civility, common sense etc then cars will simply cease to make progress.

TfL won't need to actually ban cars from Z1 they're just going to stop working as cars the second Londoners realise they are programmed to give way near infallibly to us. . No Londoner on foot is going to stop and wait for a computer in a box that is programmed to exist as inferior to them and to stop before them. It would be insane to thick that an entire urban culture is suddenly going to stop doing what it has existed to do for over 2000 years. In the Sq Mile you already see pedestrians making judgement calls on the type of taxi. Black cab, it'll stop but the driver will get out and they will quickly have more of them to assist. Minicab? They'll stop and they won't do anything so you don't have to wait for the chap in a minicab. Go to the slightly rougher bits of Z2 and you'll see blokes on foot making judgement calls on the driver they would like to stop so they can just cross the road. Van driver, big bloke, bloke that looks like them and they'll wait but soppy looking bloke in a generic company car or a woman and they're triggered. It's the locking of eyes on the operator and just keep staring at them while you step out and they stop and give way.

The removal of pedestrian fear due to the application of competent and perfectly sensible technology to cars is one of those impending changes that is going to be really quite big. And we'll first notice it due to an idiot Londoner taking an Airbnb out in the sticks and getting mown down by someone in an older car but what starts in places like London just ripples out and the relationship between car and pedestrian will alter massively.

It's one of those things that will probably be blamed on EVs but has nothing to do with them.

Yes, the safer you make the world, the more the idiots will survive to breeding age, create more idiots, and we'll require more safety measures to prevent whole flocks of them being mowed down.

We've uninvented Darwinism


My favourite illustration of how moronic we're being is: Council pays contractors to re-surface a road, man with clipboard comes along to check there work is good, the road is smooth, both lanes marked correctly and the road is free of obstructions to traffic.

But then an idiot gets run over.

Later on, the council pay more contractors to install a deliberate bump in the road they already paid to be perfectly smooth.

The speed bump ensures more idiots survive, breed and are now crossing the road without even looking - the speed bump is there, fk it.

One idiot feels so safe they get run over again.

Council returns, pays more contractors to reduce the now deliberately bumpy two lane road into a series of chicanes, reducing it's ability to handle traffic by 50% and slowing everyone down.


All of the above expense is inefficient and will still fall short of making individuals safe. Teach people to be safe, to think, to observe the world around them, and none of the nonsense above is required.

[MrTrilby]

I’m sure you don’t mean it, but that comes across as very motoristcentric, blaming pedestrians for stepping in front of cars.

You could equally argue that it’s extremely rare for pedestrians to give zero warning before stepping off a pavement. In an environment shared with pedestrians a competent driver ought to be looking for and anticipating these signals, and it’s every bit the drivers that fail to anticipate who deserve criticism for the installation of traffic calming. Rather than just “bloody pedestrians”.

[cerb4.5lee]

MrTrilby said:

I’m sure you don’t mean it, but that comes across as very motoristcentric, blaming pedestrians for stepping in front of cars.

You could equally argue that it’s extremely rare for pedestrians to give zero warning before stepping off a pavement. In an environment shared with pedestrians a competent driver ought to be looking for and anticipating these signals, and it’s every bit the drivers that fail to anticipate who deserve criticism for the installation of traffic calming. Rather than just “bloody pedestrians”.

I find it interesting that the Highway Code has been updated now, and pedestrians always have the right of way. It wasn't like that when I first started driving back in 1990 in comparison.

I do agree that you should always be anticipating, and expecting the unexpected while driving for sure though.

[TheDeuce]

MrTrilby said:

I’m sure you don’t mean it, but that comes across as very motoristcentric, blaming pedestrians for stepping in front of cars.

You could equally argue that it’s extremely rare for pedestrians to give zero warning before stepping off a pavement. In an environment shared with pedestrians a competent driver ought to be looking for and anticipating these signals, and it’s every bit the drivers that fail to anticipate who deserve criticism for the installation of traffic calming. Rather than just “bloody pedestrians”.

It was a tongue in cheek example of how adding layers of safety can have the effect of making individuals less intrinsically safe. It doesn't matter if it relates to what the motorists or pedestrians could do better. You could apply it many aspects of life where safety is enforced, at the expense of making people less used to considering safety for themselves.

Yes, motorists could do better too. If no one ever drove too quickly in built up areas and never allowed their attention to wander, we probably wouldn't have traffic calming tat littering the highways. Although I would also argue that a road is motorist-centric as an entity, and a pedestrian fully focussed on crossing safely will manage to do so almost irrespective of the standard of driver on the road. It's a trick I carry out myself often when I'm working in countries where there is next to no thought given for safety on the roads at all.

Edited by TheDeuce on Wednesday 29th May 11:04

[MrTrilby]

TheDeuce said:

It was a tongue in cheek example of how adding layers of safety can have the effect of making individuals less intrinsically safe.

…. Although I would also argue that a road is motorist-centric as an entity,

Edited by TheDeuce on Wednesday 29th May 11:04

It’s certainly an idea that it makes people less safe, but it’s unsupported by the data. Pedestrian fatalities continue to fall - down 18% according to the most recent data (2022 compared with 2019).

Equally it’s a popular and flawed misconception that roads are motorist-centric. They’re intended for a much wider range of road users, as the Highway Code tries to remind us. Particularly in an urban environment.

[TheDeuce]

MrTrilby said:

TheDeuce said:

It was a tongue in cheek example of how adding layers of safety can have the effect of making individuals less intrinsically safe.

…. Although I would also argue that a road is motorist-centric as an entity,

Edited by TheDeuce on Wednesday 29th May 11:04

It’s certainly an idea that it makes people less safe, but it’s unsupported by the data. Pedestrian fatalities continue to fall - down 18% according to the most recent data (2022 compared with 2019).

Equally it’s a popular and flawed misconception that roads are motorist-centric. They’re intended for a much wider range of road users, as the Highway Code tries to remind us. Particularly in an urban environment.

That data only proves that speed bumps etc work, of course they work - they slow traffic down...

That does nothing to disprove the view that it's better to make people intrinsically safer thinking - which will keep them safer everywhere, regardless of whether there's a specific physical safety measure in place.

People are now very used to their safety being chiefly the concern and responsibility of others. That sounds ludicrous but I think it's true. The most common thought to safety for many people in a typical day is compliance with the rules of safety set by others, not their own personal observation of what is safest.