Pedestrian safety

More than 270 000 pedestrians lose their lives on the world’s roads each year accounting for 22% of the total 1.24 million road traffic deaths . Despite the magnitude of the problem, most attempts at reducing pedestrian deaths had historically focused solely on education and traffic regulation. Since the 1990s, crash engineers have begun to use design principles that have proved successful in protecting car occupants to develop vehicle design concepts that reduce the likelihood of injuries to pedestrians in the event of a car-pedestrian crash. These involve redesigning the bumper, hood (bonnet), and the windshield and pillar to be energy absorbing (softer) without compromising the structural integrity of the car.

Most pedestrian crashes involve a forward moving car (as opposed to buses and other vehicles with a vertical hood/bonnet). In such a crash, a standing or walking pedestrian is struck and accelerated to the speed of the car and then continues forward as the car brakes to a halt. Although the pedestrian is impacted twice, first by the car and then by the ground, most of the fatal injuries occur due to the interaction with the car. The vehicle designers usually focus their attention on understanding the car-pedestrian interaction, which is characterized by the following sequence of events: the vehicle bumper first contacts the lower limbs of the pedestrian, the leading edge of the hood hits the upper thigh or pelvis, and the head and upper torso are struck by the top surface of the hood and/or windshield.

Most pedestrian deaths occur due to the traumatic brain injury resulting from the hard impact of the head against the stiff hood or windshield. In addition, although usually non-fatal, injuries to the lower limb (usually to the knee joint and long bones) are the most common cause of disability due to pedestrian crashes. A Frontal Protection System (FPS) is a device fitted to the front end of a vehicle to protect both pedestrians and cyclists who are involved in a front end collision with a vehicle. Car design has been shown to have a large impact on the scope and severity of pedestrian injury in car crashes.

...
Wikipedia