Retired neurologist says increased weight and acceleration of electric vehicles will lead to rise in cycling-related fatalities unless 20mph speed limits are introduced

Every car has 1 single safety system above any developed to date.... ........ the driver.

As long as everything is functioning correctly without a mechanical failure, a good driver cannot be beaten.

Sure on the road there are 100's of potential contributing factors to cause an accident such as distracted cyclist/driver/pedestrian, cyclists/driver/pedestrian ignoring traffic lights or cyclist/driver/pedestrian ignoring Highway Code.

The trick - like the perfect ruler - is how you get the wonderful ideal kind rather than the ones reality tends to serve up.

Alternatively, knowing human nature and a bit of physics, maybe apply the principles of "sustainable safety" as opposed to wishful thinking or ideology.

https://sustainablesafety.nl/

but is that because the residential roads Im assuming are lined with parked cars, so the natural tendency is to drive slower, and then the 20mph limit is more easily adopted, rather than the lower limit is just being adopted ?

its just Ive seen 20mph zones implemented in residential areas, with signs, with visual cues and even with speed bumps and it makes no difference to the speed of how the vast majority drive in them.

same in 30limits, Ive seen roads where theyve installed speed cushions, which are next to useless imo as their width is smaller than most vehicles inside wheel to wheel width so people can just drive over them as if they arent there, and theyve installed a speed indicator sign, SUV overtook me went through the sign at 37mph, so his speedo was almost certainly showing 40mph. So there were physical cues, visual cues, and that driver was happily driving basically as fast as he wanted to.

Some A roads around here, without parked cars are also 20 zones. I accept that narrower roads = generally lower speeds, but even on A roads round here most cars drive at 20 -27mph - a lot better for cyclists than 30 -37mph.

I'd like to see most roads in English towns and villages being 20mph, except dual carriageways. As a driver, it makes very little difference to my journey time, and its a lot safer because more time to observe and react and less speed to scrub off. Had my driving assessed recently by an IAM examiner who agreed btw ...

Except he is correct on this matter. 
It's very basic physics. F=MA

And he has correctly identified that electric cars have very good standing start acceleration, so it is not an unreasonable hypothesis that electric cars are more likely to create incidents through increased speeds in congested urban environments. Combined with the increased momentum, faster acceleration and poorer stopping is a problem is not an exactly radical science and it is unlikely that there could be a counter-intuitive compensating something around as drivers aren't noted for slowing down to compensate for poor stopping in SUVs.

If be interested in comparing the stopping distance of a Golf and an e-Golf.

Edit: old news https://www.whatcar.com/advice/buying/why-do-electric-cars-have-longer-b...

Careful, there is mention of "wing" mirrors.

I wonder whether "wing cameras" will become the new parlance. I suspect that people will still refer to rear view cameras as wing mirrors, causing excess pedantry across the nation.

Are they right or left, though?

Maybe we could agree to just have one in the middle as a way to stop the thread descending into bickering?

KE = 0.5 MV^2 shows that 30 has 2.25 times the energy to dissipate than 20.

levestane wrote:

KE = 0.5 MV^2 shows that 30 has 2.25 times the energy to dissipate than 20.

Yes, but the comparator is mass not velocity, i.e. EVs are heavier then IC vehicles. In terms of KE, a car being 20% heavier isn't going to make much difference. Moreover, smallish changes in KE are only going to make a difference in collisions which cause the vehicle (and driver) to significantly slow down. A pedestrian or cyclist is so much lighter than a car, that the small changes in the mass of the car are irrelevant.

No offense, but at least he has formal medical training and probably the benefit of having seen many cases. 

What professional qualifications do you have to support your claim that he's wrong? 

I'm a trained statistician unlike the quack who propbably did one term at med school if that.  
Facts matter, his unsubstantiated opinions shouldn't.

I agree.

Although mommy always told me a good statistician can always come up with the result you want.
Just like those 79% of 48.31 women whose wrinkles disappeared after someone bought them cream X for Christmas 🎁

So, show us your facts and explain how you arrive at your conclusion.  You're just making assumptions.

Secret_squirrel wrote:

I'm a trained statistician unlike the quack who propbably did one term at med school if that.  
Facts matter, his unsubstantiated opinions shouldn't.

It's simple physics, really. A travelling object with increased mass will require more energy to stop

What evidence do we have he has any formal medical training?

Would a brain 'doctor' be able to sew me back together if I got torn to shreds by 3 MAMILs riding abreast on their carbon bikes, straight through the red light at the pelican crossing I was using?

Might just be a 'Dr' because someone gave him a framed bit of paper at a Uni do

A simple web search will tell you.

If...

But yes we should try, rather than just shrug.

I don't see any downsides to 20mph being the new 30mph, as long as there is some actual enforcement. I still think separation of modes where the motorised traffic volume is high and / or speed differential great (which can still be the case in a 20mph zone) is the gold-standard solution to lots of these issues. It just takes longer and more political "bravery" (Sadly more than most of our overlords possess).

Agreed. Sadly "top trumps" is a factor in advertising so even if you can't say "top speed 200mph!" saying "0-60 in 3 seconds" will indeed hook some folks, unnecessary as this is for getting from A-B. *

Maybe car ads should be regulated like cigarette ones? (was about to say alcohol but that's a low bar...)

* sorry, there's me forgetting that acceleration is a vital safety feature on UK roads again...

I worry that the growing size of today's vehicles, the wish for unnecessarily huge range, combined with insane acceleration will mean that we will see more deaths of innocents inside buildings.

Ah yes, good point. Probably we'll hear even more "it did it all by itself! " stories the more electronic distractions driver assistance features there are.

ktache wrote:

I worry that the growing size of today's vehicles, the wish for unnecessarily huge range, combined with insane acceleration will mean that we will see more deaths of innocents inside buildings.

Or maybe a public call for mandatory pedestrian helmets (inside and outside use) - if it saves one life...

Even if we struggle to hard limit capabilities, we could have similar classifications to motorbikes defined by combination of weight, acceleration, top speed, etc and make them easy to lose;

So extenuating circumstances on bans would automatically restrict you to the least capable vehicles, while the highest performance vehicles require a long period with a clean licence, extended (and periodic) tests, etc

And once all urban areas are 20mph, then the cues will be exactly the same as 30mph now, so drivers will have no difficulty whatsoever.

"......Neil Greig, director of policy and research at road safety charity the Institute of Advanced Motorists, argued that a default approach to 20mph on its own will not enhance road safety or benefit active travel."

Well, it appears to have worked everywhere it's been tried, so sorry Mr Greig, stick with baking: road safety seems to be beyond you.