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Another angle to consider would be making pedestrian safety mandatory and setting standards, rather than waiting for vague promises from manufacturers. Volvo c
by braythwayt 7y ago
Another angle to consider would be making pedestrian safety mandatory and setting standards, rather than waiting for vague promises from manufacturers.
Volvo created a “pedestrian air bag” years ago that inflated on the hood of the car when it detected what could be a pedestrian being struck.
They replaced that with systems that auto-brake at low speeds when they detect pedestrians or bicycles. Other manufacturers have this kind of tech too, but there are zero standards and no enforcement AFAICT.
- SketchySeaBeast 7y ago> Volvo created a “pedestrian air bag” years ago that inflated on the hood of the car when it detected what could be a pedestrian being struck. I wonder how effective that would be - given that a pedestrian hitting the hood could be coming from a ton of different vectors compared to the collision of a driver with a steering wheel, I wonder if you'd just end up throwing more energy and chaos into the collision.
- braythwayt 7y agoGood question. There is a bunch of information about it on the Internet, here's a post that seems somewhat informative: https://www.autoevolution.com/news/how-pedestrian-airbags-work-45419.html https://www.autoevolution.com/news/how-pedestrian-airbags-wo... But note, they have moved on to trying to avoid striking pedestrians and/or reduce injury through reducing speed.
- SketchySeaBeast 7y agoAh, so it looks to provide cushion for the hood. I had visions of the bumper exploding into a giant airbag ahead of the car. Seems like that's a better choice - moving to prevention rather than mitigation.