Nobody wants to get knocked down by a moving car – and if drivers are able to gain protection from airbags, how about pedestrians? The Swedish folks who churn out the Volvo S40 had this in mind, introducing the first airbag in the world for pedestrians to be outfitted on a car. There will be sensors installed in the grill that is capable of detecting impacts, releasing the bonnet while deploying an airbag in a split second. Of course, I do not think that this airbag will be of much use in a high speed accident, but if the S40 is moving relatively slowly, then the airbag will definitely come in handy to minimize injury to the pedestrian. The airbag itself will be activated from the lower part of the windscreen, lifting the rear edge of the bonnet in order to free up space in the engine compartment. It would be interesting to see how Volvo’s competitors will react to this. Strange, while Volvo claims that this is a first (perhaps just from them), Humanix has already placed airbags on the outside since a couple of years ago.
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