Modern cars certainly are designed to protect pedestrians. That was part of the movement away from steel bumpers towards plastic bumpers with foam inside. I used to drive a 1998 Toyota 4Runner, and you could tell it apart from the 1999 4Runner because the '99 had what people call a 'fat lip bumper'. The bumper was enlarged to help protect pedestrians.

Here's an article from 2007 about designing cars to protect pedestrians: http://www.edmunds.com/car-safety/protecting-pedestrians-thr...

Volvo has pedestrian airbags in their newer cars, the car will detect collision with a person and pop the hood up on a cushion to keep the pedestrian safe: http://www.autoevolution.com/news/how-pedestrian-airbags-wor...