Prius drivers look out

By George Gombossy, Connecticut Watchdog

Proving a maxim that all things positive also have negative aspects, it turns out that hybrid electric vehicles have a higher incidence rate of pedestrian and bicyclist collisions than regular vehicles.

ConsumerReports.Org said today that a recent report from the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) blamed the higher incidence rates to the fact that the electric hybrids are quiet when traveling at slow speeds.

”NHTSA looked at state-level crash files to compare crash rates on these two types of vehicles. Out of 8,387 hybrids 77 (or .9 percent) were involved in crashes with pedestrains. Out of 559,703 conventional vehicles studied, 3,578 (or .6 percent) were involved in crashes with pedestrians. In crashes involving bicyclists, 48 (or almost .6 percent) were involved in crashes with a hybrid vehicle whereas conventional vehicles were implicated in 1,862 (or .3 percent) of crashes,” Consumer Reports said.