Georgia Injury Law Blog
Most American guardrails simply are not tested for the extra weight of electric cars. This may pose a safety risk when there is a car accident involving a electric vehicles crashing into a guardrail.
According to CBS News, these safety concerns are valid because the strength of guardrails on American roads are typically tested against vehicles that weigh approximately 5000 pounds. However, the average electric vehicle weighs approximately 30% more. This deficiency in testing standards is possibly posing a risk of serious personal injury to drivers and passengers in electric cars.
Recently, a fatal car accident involved a Tesla that crashed through a guardrail. The resulting car accident left the motorist dead and the car completely mangled. According to safety experts, these guardrails are not doing a good enough job of restraining electric vehicles compared to gasoline – powered vehicles. The guardrails are tested against gasoline -powered vehicles, and unfortunately, electric – powered vehicles that are involved in collisions against guardrails simply crash through or even crash under the guardrail. Tests involving concrete medians that were slammed into by electric power vehicles found that even in those cases where the car did not crash through the median and end up in the opposing lane, large chunks of concrete did go flying through the air and into the path of oncoming cars.