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External Airbag Designed to Protect Pedestrians
Thanks to researchers at Cranfield University, you don't have to feel bad when you plow into a group of pedestrians who are crossing the street too slowly. They have designed an external airbag that mounts to your hood at the base of the windshield. Research shows that this is the area where a pedestrian's head is most likely to hit in an accident. "Test results indicate that the system works extremely well. When fitted to a demonstrator vehicle not originally designed with pedestrian protection in mind, the results were well inside all current legal criteria for pedestrian protection currently in force in Europe," Roger Hardy of the university's Cranfield Impact Centre said.
I really want to bounce off a car with this!
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
What we really need are cowcatchers, like on trains, so that the pedestrians don't get stuck under the wheels and jam them. :-)
Bruce Perens.
I mean, if I got hit by a car, I might appreciate that they'd paid extra for it, but since I'm not likely to hit myself with my car (unless my wife tries to run me down), why would I pay extra?
Unless this is mandated, it won't catch on.
The problem is, impacts are not predictable.
The "most likely spot" to hit, is actually depending on the following factors:
- Speed of collision
- Braking/coasting/accelerating (braking typically causes a vehicle's nose to dip, accelerating causes it to rise)
- Height of the pedestrian in relation to the height of the vehicle's front bumper/grille.
- Angle of collision (pedestrian motion will be different if hit head-on, as opposed to someone trying to whip around a right-hand turn and blindsiding someone who's crossing properly; angle also changes if you're not at a right-angle intersection)
The other problem is, does this truly cushion the blow, taking the energy into the crashbag and causing the pedestrian to be more likely to remain on the stopped vehicle, or is it more elastic, imparting acceleration back into the poor pedestrian in time for them to slide off the car - now accelerated to a good 15-20mph or higher - and then hit their head on the cement?
Actually, it pales in comparison to the #1 advance for "pedestrian protection", DON'T F-ING HIT THEM IN THE FIRST PLACE!
Sorry, but the idea that ricocheting a pedestrian from my hood into something else (presumably something without an airbag) seems absurd.
At BEST its attempting to move liability from one person (the one driving the vehicle), to another (the driver that caused the life altering injury when some hapless pedestrian got thrown like a billiard ball against his car).
If these come out, I'm just going to wait until the lawsuits start piling in, although since they'll most likely be filed by living people instead of on their behalf, it may take juries a bit to warm up to the idea of placing blame where it really belongs (cue Monty-Python's "You got turned into a newt? ... I got better" routine)
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Most cars on the road today are not compliant to the new standards beacause they were changed last year and are only enforced on NEW vehicles. However, I don't believe even all new vehicles have to comply this year already but have a few year's time to adapt.
The most notable change you can see is that all new European cars (model year 2009) have an extremely high front bumper and are incredibly round on that end making them look somewhat chubby. Most of them are also made so the bonnet can collapse under a pedestrian's weight while also making sure they don't hit the engine or something on it.
Another very noticable change is that the edge between bonnet and wind screen is no longer a sharp metalic edge on most cars, but has a smooth transition made of plastic.
I am saying this as an armchair crash test fanatic, not an expert in the field so I might be marginally incorrect on some points.
Hey man, let's see you design an air bag that isn't actually a spinning axe wheel of death or a mountain lion and see if you think it's that easy. And if you do, then let me know what I'm doing wrong?!
The enemies of Democracy are
Lock up your daughters! A pillow on the hood of the car? As if they needed any MORE encouragement...
Actually, it pales in comparison to the #1 advance for "pedestrian protection", DON'T F-ING HIT THEM IN THE FIRST PLACE!
Sorry, but the idea that ricocheting a pedestrian from my hood into something else (presumably something without an airbag) seems absurd.
And I find your suggestion to not plow into pedestrians equally absurd. How else am I going to rack up combo bonus points?
Also, obviously the goal is to have as many cars as possible with these air bags on them, so the pedestrian won't just bounce off my car into another air-bagless car and die, but instead will be bounced again and again from car to car until harmlessly tossed onto the grass, where they will doubtless jump up and shout in child-like glee "Again! Again!" And I'll get like 10,000 points for a 40-bounce combo. Looks like a win-win scenario to me. Why Luddites like you are against using technology to make life more awesome, I'll never know.
The enemies of Democracy are
What I really want is an iron spike in the center of the steering wheel. Then the people who should be driving instead of [pick the distraction] would actually pay attention to the task at hand.
[John]
Shit better not happen!
"Also, if I'm protecting the pedestrian, do I lose my entire field of view, and end up running down other pedestrians?"
I think after you hit the first one you are supposed to stop. Hell you could even try slowing down before you hit him.
What? This is Slashdot, news for nerds. You need to stay inside more often.
Sir how dare you. Everyday I worry about my unintelligent 16 year old daughter driving. I owed it to myself to make sure that she has the biggest vehicle that I can afford so that she can stay safe on the road. We all have feelings sir. And you sir are a bigot. And probably a republican too since you like to tell people how to live. Communist.
An airbag is not like a beachball- it's not elastic. In fact, it has to be inelastic for it to work. If in-car airbags acted like you described, they would simply cause the driver's head to bounce back into the headrest, causing massive brain injury. The airbag works by decelerating the head more slowly than the steering wheel would. 40 mph to 0 mpg in a few milliseconds versus a much larger fraction of a second is HUGE in terms of physics.
The best way to protect a falling egg is to drop it onto something inelastic yet yielding- a pile of goose down would work well, for example. Airbags work on this principle (as do crumple zones): Slow the deceleration, absorb the energy (as opposed to transferring it like a bouncy ball), person lives (usually).
A pedestrian airbag would work like that- more a pile of leaves than a trampoline. Find a video on youtube or something of the airbags used by stuntmen in movies- they don't bounce, they deflate.
Hope this helps.
-b
No offense, but I've stopped responding to AC's.