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The Safety Challenges of Electric Vehicles: Tips for Business Owners and Urban Planners

Electric vehicles (EVs) pave the way for a greener future by reducing carbon emissions and advancing sustainable transportation. However, their rapid adoption has brought emerging safety challenges, including fire risks, infrastructure damage, and pedestrian accidents. Addressing these issues is essential for decision-makers, urban planners, and business owners to ensure a safer transition to EVs.

Battery-Related Fire Risks: The Hidden Hazard

At the heart of every EV is a lithium-ion battery, valued for its efficiency and power. However, these batteries pose significant risks when damaged, such as in a crash. A compromised battery can trigger thermal runaway, a rapid heating process that causes intense, prolonged fires. Recent incidents, including a fatal Toronto crash in October 2024, highlight the dangers of these quick, hard-to-extinguish flames.

Reports show that EV battery fires demand far more resources for control than conventional fires and can even reignite hours or days later. While statistically rare, their severity underscores the need for safer battery designs, crash-detection systems, and improved cooling technology. Emergency responders must also receive specialized training to manage EV-related fires effectively.

For businesses with EV fleets, equipping vehicles with tools like window breakers and seatbelt cutters—and providing workforce training on quick, safe exits—is critical.

Weight and Infrastructure Damage: The Unintended Consequence

Due to their battery systems, EVs are significantly heavier than gasoline vehicles. An electric SUV, for example, can weigh up to 30% more than its traditional counterpart. This extra weight puts immense strain on infrastructure like guardrails, bridges, and safety barriers, many of which are not engineered to withstand such forces.

Recent crash tests reveal heavier EVs can breach guardrails during accidents, escalating risks to drivers, road users, and nearby property. The resulting damage contributes to higher repair costs for municipalities and increases the potential for severe car accident injuries.

To address this, urban planners and transportation officials must reevaluate safety standards and explore reinforced infrastructure designs that can accommodate the growing weight of EVs.

Pedestrian Safety: The Quiet Danger

EVs operate with near-silent engines, especially at low speeds, which makes them harder for pedestrians to detect. In noisy urban environments, this lack of auditory cues becomes particularly dangerous. A recent study found that electric cars are twice as likely to hit pedestrians than petrol or diesel vehicles.

Driver assistance systems (ADAS) and semi-autonomous features, while designed to improve safety, can exacerbate this issue when drivers over-rely on them. Research shows that lapses in attention and the quiet operation of EVs increase pedestrian risks.

Solutions include requiring artificial sound emitters for EVs traveling at low speeds, a measure already being implemented in some areas. Enhanced public education can also raise awareness among drivers and pedestrians about EVs’ unique risks.

Mitigation Strategies for a Safer Future

Addressing EV safety challenges requires a multi-faceted approach:

Improved Battery Safety: Automakers must develop stronger battery casings, fire containment systems, and crash-resistant designs. Emergency responders need ongoing training to handle EV fires.

Infrastructure Upgrades: Safety barriers, guardrails, and road designs must be reinforced to accommodate the increased weight of EVs. Funding and updated standards are key.

Enhanced Pedestrian Safety: Regulations requiring low-speed sound emitters must be standardized. Driver assistance systems must prioritize pedestrian detection without encouraging driver over-reliance.

Public Education: Drivers must understand EVs’ silent operation, increased weight, and safety limitations, while pedestrians should be cautious about reduced auditory cues.

Balancing Progress with Safety

EVs represent a significant step forward in combating climate change and reducing fossil fuel dependence. However, their unique safety challenges—battery fires, infrastructure strain, and pedestrian risks—must be addressed proactively. By combining innovation, regulation, and education, stakeholders can ensure that the shift to electric mobility benefits the environment and enhances safety for everyone.
A cleaner, greener future can—and must—be a safer one as well.

Author: Brenda’s Hollingsworth is a top-rated personal injury lawyer at Auger Hollingsworth Accident & Injury Lawyers. Serving clients from Downtown Toronto to Ottawa, she helps clients secure proper compensation for personal injuries, insurance denials, auto accidents, and wrongful deaths.

 

Brenda Hollingsworth, Partner of Auger Hollingsworth

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