Protecting Pedestrians Through Vehicle Design (4)
Looking Ahead

Automotive engineers and researchers, as well as experts from the safety and medical fields, continue to study vehicle-pedestrian collisions, developing other ways to reduce pedestrian injury while still maintaining a high level of safety for the vehicle's occupants. Honda continues to be a leader in this area of research, with the development of its POLAR-II dummy, the only dummy currently in existence that can measure pedestrian impact. The company uses the dummy to perform computer modeling of pedestrian impacts and lends it to other automakers and industry groups for testing.

One vehicle design we may see on future U.S. models is a pop-up hood system, which would lift the hood a few inches in the area closest to the windshield, effectively giving a larger cushion of space underneath it in the event of a pedestrian impact. This feature is currently in use on some Hondas in Europe, and Nissan will debut it on its Skyline coupe when it goes on sale in Japan this fall, though there are no plans as yet by either company to bring this feature to the U.S.

It's likely that the future design changes we see on vehicles in the U.S. will be driven by safety standards overseas. Both Japan and Europe recently instituted more pedestrian safety standards and the European Union has even more stringent standards set to go into effect in 2010.

While this area of safety may seem slowgoing, it's Longhitano's opinion that it is so complex it simply can't be rushed. He says, "Understanding [vehicle-pedestrian collisions] is very complex. Every time we do a study, we learn 10 other side things we never expected. Those things in turn raise even more questions, requiring more research."