image: InsideEVs
Pedestrian safety is something modern American cars struggle with, partly because there’s no standard in place to test how a human head hitting a vehicle hood would fare in an impact.
Some new vehicles have hoods that automatically pop up before hitting a pedestrian, but not many can automatically retract the hood back to its original position after the impact is avoided. Volkswagen recently showcased how such a system would work.
Volkswagen’s Proactive Pedestrian Protection system will offer a function that automatically pops open the hood. The feature is intended to soften the impact for a pedestrian’s head. If it’s a false alarm, the hood automatically closes.
