New Volvo Designed With Exterior Airbags For Pedestrians

This is one that definitely warrants a "how has this not been thought of already?" comment.

Airbags have become a pretty standard safety feature in most modern vehicle design and, however until now, this mechanism has been an internal feature designed only for passengers and drivers. In what they claim to be a world first, Swedish automobile company, Volvo, has created an external airbag on the front of their newest car to protect pedestrians if there were to be a collision.

Volvo has really prioritised safety into their design, with a vision statement that "nobody should die or suffer serious injury from a new Volvo car by the year 2020". The new V40 features haptic auto steering to assist the driver staying in the right lane, a cross-traffic alert radar which detects vehicles coming in from the rear, as well as a pedestrian-detection system that will activate the brakes if someone suddenly walks out infront of the car.

Perhaps the most revolutionary of these safety-minded features though is the pedestrian airbag. In the scenario of someone walking out in front of the car (and the collision being unavoidable even with the auto-brake technology) sensors in the front bumper register the physical contact and the bonnet will deploy the external airbag.

Of course, while the risk of injury is still high, the demonstration video does a pretty slick job at making it look like an almost comfortable slip 'n' slide, with a cool slow motion that renders far from a real life 50km/h situation. However, cynacism aside, there's little doubt that the force of impact is heavily reduced and that this is a really innovative step forward in upping motor vehicle safety.

I'm looking forward to seeing the TVCs that accompany the commercial release of this car. The whole concept strikes me as something where there would be room for some pretty interesting creative.