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by microcolonel 2322 days ago
> Reading through the crash test procedure, it is astounding how little attention is paid to pedestrians.

In the U.S. at least, pedestrian safety concerns mainly affect prescriptive legislation (i.e. no pop up headlights). Some countries and blocs have testing similar to crash tests, but I'm not really sure how effective something like that is: any meaningful standard would need to have exceptions for different categories of vehicle. Though honestly I can't see that much can be done about pedestrian safety once your vehicle is colliding with a human being.

2 comments

This a trap we all fall into. Because you are smart but don't understand that a thing could exist, doesn't mean it doesn't. We often use this crutch when absolving someone else of an action taken or a design flaw. "I would have never thought of that!" or "How could someone have anticipated that?"

> I can't see that much can be done about pedestrian safety once your vehicle is colliding with a human being.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedestrian_safety_through_vehi...

"Though honestly I can't see that much can be done about pedestrian safety once your vehicle is colliding with a human being."

I don't agree, there some definitive choices in car design that affect the aftermath of the collision that can have effect on the pedestrian surviving. As pointed above if a pedestrian is hit by a car he has a better chance to roll over the hood of the car vs an SUV where the pedestrian would probably would be hit and fall under the car.