Electric Vehicles (Vulnerable Road Users)

Jim Hood Excerpts

Wednesday 30th October 2013 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on bringing this matter to the Chamber for our consideration. I suspect that every one of us in the House have had the opportunity to do a walk with the Guide Dogs association, where we put on a blindfold and do a 2-mile walk through a very busy town. If ever an illustration was needed of how dangerous it is for a blind person, and how vulnerable they are, that is one way in which the message is brought home very quickly. Does she feel that when it comes to electric cars, there is an onus on the Government—perhaps the Minister will address this point today—to have some sort of method of warning people, whatever that may be? I am not an expert, but blind people and vulnerable people need to be protected on roads and on footpaths.

[Mr Jim Hood (in the Chair)]

Order. For future reference, that sounded more like a speech than an intervention. I hope that any other intervention will be a lot shorter than that.

[Mrs Glindon]

The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) is right, and the tenet of our debate today is to ask the Government to do more. I have to confess that I have not yet done a walk around with a blindfold on, but I know people who have, and I do not think that any of us here who are blessed to have our sight can imagine what it is like or what the dangers are until we have experienced what people with poor sight or no sight have to experience.

Research by the TAS Partnership that was published only last month shows that electric and hybrid vehicles were involved in 25% more collisions, causing injury to pedestrians, between 2010 and 2012, than conventional vehicles. Moreover, between 2005 and 2008, crashes involving quiet vehicles trebled. In 2011, research for the Department for Transport found that electric and hybrid vehicles were far more difficult to detect than internal combustion engine vehicles at the lowest steady speed and, when pulling away from rest, at the lowest speed. EU research has shown that 93% of blind and partially sighted people have experienced difficulties with electric vehicles.

All those figures are very concerning. The fact that people have been injured in accidents with these vehicles is frightening enough, but as Guide Dogs has pointed out, loss of confidence is also a massive problem for blind and partially sighted people, and a bad experience, as already described, could ultimately lead to someone not wanting to leave their home, and therefore losing their independence. Many blind and partially sighted people are easily discouraged from independent mobility if any element of their journey is adversely impacted by outside factors. Guide Dogs estimates that about 180,000 blind and partially sighted people never leave home alone.

Research by the eVADER—electric vehicle alert for detection and emergency response—project found that 91% of blind and partially sighed people want to see quiet vehicles recognised as a problem, and with 81% of the general public, according to a survey by Orange, wanting electric vehicles to emit a noise at a level equivalent to conventional vehicles, it is surely time for the Government to act.