Are Hybrid Cars Causing Collisions?
Most grade-schoolers learn to stop, look, and listen before they cross the street. Now the listening part may be getting harder for people of all ages as quiet-engine hybrid vehicles proliferate. A new federal study reports that hybrid electric cars are more likely than models with internal combustion engines to crash with pedestrians and bicyclists, especially during low-speed maneuvers when the hybrids are likely to be running only on electricity. Conducted by Refaat Hanna for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the study relies on police reports of collisions in 12 states to compute proportions of crashes involving pedestrians and bicyclists colliding with Honda and Toyota hybrids versus similar cars from the same automakers without hybrid engines. In comparing crash rates for the vehicle groups, Hanna noted their wind and tire noise. The hybrids’ overall likelihood of crashing with a pedestrian was 40 per cent higher than the other cars’, increasing to a 50 per cent
