Are EVs & Autonomous Cars Causing The Rise In Driving Violations?
Data from LexisNexis Risk Solutions appears to indicate that all kinds of driving violations have increased exponentially over the last seven years. While speeding violations, drunk driving, and distracted driving all saw lulls following the pandemic, they now exceed the rates they were at in 2019 or earlier. It means more people are getting speeding fines – and more traffic accidents happen on the roads every single day.
This represents a dangerous trend, especially if it continues on the current trajectory and doesn’t slow down. As with any serious problem like this, everyone wants to know what’s causing it. It just so happens that the increase in driving violations and convictions coincides with the increase in electric vehicles and autonomous cars on the roads. Is this pure happenstance, or is there a genuine correlation?
EVs: Heavier Vehicles Carrying More Speed
The case for EVs being at fault here is simple: these vehicles are considerably heavier and larger than the equivalent combustion engine cars. At the same time, they’re also phenomenally fast. You can drive a gigantic 7-seater electric vehicle with a 0-60 speed under five seconds. Some of the power figures on these cars are astronomical – you’re clearing 1000bhp in some cases, more than most hypercars with combustion engines.
All of this added speed and weight means that two things are more likely to happen:
- EV drivers are more guilty of speeding
- Crashes become more frequent
As such, it’s not beyond the realms of possibility to claim that electric cars are a major driving force behind the increase in driving and traffic violations. Plenty of criminal defense lawyers have to deal with cases like this all the time – someone’s caught speeding in an EV, and they’ve unfortunately crashed into the car in front, causing severe injuries to the other party. Had they been in a similar car with a combustion engine, there’s an argument that the decrease in speed and weight may have prevented an incident.
Moreover, when you look at electric vehicle accident statistics, these vehicles have a 25% higher insurance claim frequency, which suggests they’re involved in more accidents than traditional cars.
In defense of EVs, you could look at that insurance statistic in one of two ways. Perhaps there are more claims due to more accidents, or maybe people are more likely to claim when driving an EV because these vehicles are newer, more technologically advanced, and more expensive to fix. There’s also yet to be any significant data that categorically proves a link between EVs and increased collisions or driving convictions. So, while you can definitely look at the style of these cars and pinpoint some potentially worrying links, it’s all conjecture at the moment.
Autonomous Cars: Still An Emerging Technology
You see them more nowadays, but we’re still in the emerging technology phase of autonomous cars. This means that you can expect to see a few glitches and bumps in the road here and then – and that’s reflected in the fact that autonomous vehicles are guilty of more driving violations than humans.
There are stories of Waymo taxis receiving hundreds of parking tickets because they park where they shouldn’t. You also see AVs make illegal moves – like turning in the middle of a road or accidentally turning right when they shouldn’t. This is all down to the technology not being there yet, though there’s also another key thing to keep in mind: responsibility.
If you’re in a self-driving car, and there’s a crash, who is responsible? This is such a gray area, as it all depends on the situation – and where the crash happens. In some states, the human being inside the car will still be responsible, particularly if they own the car and are putting it in full self-driving mode. In other situations, it’s the car’s manufacturer who will be liable, but only if the AV caused the accident.
We’re left in a position where AVs could end up causing crashes, and this goes down as a driving violation, despite the fact that it wasn’t necessarily the technology’s fault. It could’ve been the recklessness of another driver in a “normal” car, but because an AV is involved, it gets the blame.
What Else Could Be At Fault?
So, are EVs and AVs likely to be the cause of increased driving violations? No. Well, there’s not enough direct evidence to link the two as the sole cause. Could they be part of the problem? Perhaps, but you also need to look at other things that could influence the growing number of people convicted of driving violations and felonies.
For instance, maybe you can point to the increased commute times in certain places? As cities and towns develop and get bigger, commute times increase and traffic gets worse. This means people are in their cars for longer, making it more likely that they’ll be distracted and cause a collision.
The data certainly seems to indicate that this could be a factor, with the average commute time increasing to 27.2 minutes across the country, just 0.4 minutes less than in 2019. Again, this brings us back to a topic mentioned in the beginning: the pandemic. Could this “increase” in traffic violations all be down to life getting back to normal following a few slow years? Perhaps people are looking to treat themselves and enjoy faster and nicer cars, hence the increase in speeding violations. Maybe it’s a reaction to people taking public transport less frequently after they stopped during the pandemic?
The bottom line is that you could identify a myriad of reasons behind the increase in driving violations and convictions over the last few years. What you can’t do is point the blame solely at electric vehicles and autonomous cars. They might be guilty of contributing in some way – and there’s a lot to be said about the weight, size, and power of EVs – but they are far from the only guilty parties at play. It’s likely a combination of issues that simply coincides with increased numbers of AVs and EVs on the roads.
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Ella Rae Greene, Editor In Chief
