Re:Berlin crash prompts calls to ban SUVs from German cities
by SketchySeaBeast on Tuesday September 10, 2019 @11:53AM
(#20929579)
> 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.
Re:Berlin crash prompts calls to ban SUVs from German cities
by braythwayt on Tuesday September 10, 2019 @12:04PM
(#20929721)
Good 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-wo...
But note, they have moved on to trying to avoid striking pedestrians and/or reduce injury through reducing speed.
Re:Berlin crash prompts calls to ban SUVs from German cities
by SketchySeaBeast on Tuesday September 10, 2019 @12:26PM
(#20929953)
Ah, 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.
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.