For all the good the electric vehicles can do for the environment, they can also be silent killers in certain cases.
Every customer has their own reason for selecting the vehicle(s) they drive. It may be a little more specialized for work, or it’s simply be a matter of budget, or maybe there’s a fondness for a particular brand. Another primary factor that can play into this is environmental concerns.
Where the latter is a priority, electric vehicles are certainly an attractive option. Not only do they cut out that dreadful gas pollution -– the U.S. Department of Energy states that a colossal amount of carbon dioxide amounting to around 1.5 billion tons is emitted by cars every year – but they help with another form too: Noise pollution.
For some drivers (and those in a vehicle’s vicinity), the delicate hum of an electric vehicle makes a nice quiet change. For others, it’s rather unnatural, a sign of a huge, sweeping change that the motoring world is still struggling to take on board (that being EVs more broadly).
The absence of a petrol or diesel engine’s characteristic cacophony, however, will become a growing problem for pedestrians as such vehicles become more common.A silent danger
The Injury Prevention study « Headphone use and pedestrian injury and death in the United States: 2004–2011, » from Richard Lichenstein et al, provides some sobering information.
