Filed under: SUVs, Japan, Safety
Toyoda proves you can never have enough airbags
First came driver airbags, then passenger airbags. Side airbags were followed by curtain airbags. Then knee airbags appeared. With many vehicles on the road already equipped with six or more airbags for passenger safety, and seemingly no interior room left for additional inflatable supplemental restraints, Toyoda Gosei (it's an offshoot of Toyota) is showing a prototype fitted with airbags designed to protect pedestrians--yes, those "innocent victims" outside the vehicle. With a large exterior airbag on each end of the hood (one for the initial hit on the thigh, the other to cushion the secondary skull impact), and even an airbag inside the rear hatch, Toyoda Gosei is touting the concept as having "360-degree airbag protection." Effective or not, we question why the responsibility of pedestrian safety is shifting from the traveler on foot to the driver behind the wheel. Can't we just teach people to stay out of the the street? Thanks for the tip, Diego!
[Source: technabob]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
endotoxic 8:05PM (6/06/2008)
Why don't we just drive cars with front and rear ends made out of memory foam? We can all just bounce off each other. And they'll reform back to shape after the impact.
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Andrew 8:10PM (6/06/2008)
This post should probably mention that Toyoda Gosei is an offshoot of Toyota.
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Benfolio 9:20PM (6/06/2008)
It's toyoDUH
Greg 11:53PM (6/06/2008)
You misspelled "Toyota" no fewer than three times in that article (and it's TITLE). This is an embarrassment. For every Autoblogger who posts an awesome writeup of an R8 or a similar car there is another one who can't spell the name of one of the top auto manufacturers in the world. Get Firefox, copy-paste your documents into Word, get a high school diploma, whatever you need to do, stop embarrassing yourself on a major automotive website.
TheClassic 12:30AM (6/07/2008)
I thought it was mispelled too, but its not: www.toyoda-gosei.com
hc5duke 12:38AM (6/07/2008)
@Greg: You misspelled "its" in your post (in the FIRST SENTENCE). This is an embarrassment. For every commenter who posts an awesome post with correct spelling and grammar there is another one who can't tell the difference between its and it's. Get an MLA style guide, copy-paste your documents into Word (one with grammar check I suppose), get a high school diploma, whatever you need to do, stop embarrassing yourself in a major automotive website comments section.
Oh, and no, autoblog didn't misspell Toyota or Toyoda. Google is your friend
Michael Harley 2:18AM (6/07/2008)
Good idea. I updated the post to mention the affiliation with Toyota. :-)
By the way, we can't type our Blogs in Word as the program's formatting really screws up things...
- Mike
Tai 10:14AM (6/07/2008)
@Greg
Toyoda is the actual family name. When they started up the car company they created "Toyota" because it only takes 8 strokes to write it in Katakana form. 8 is thought to be good luck since the character to write 8 also means infinity. I learned this when I went on one of those plant tours during my stay abroad. ^^
I believe you owe the writer an apology or do what so many people do when they screw up this badly; change your user name.
Michael 8:18PM (6/06/2008)
More cushion for the pushin'.
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Yar 8:28PM (6/06/2008)
Reminds me of the car from Demolition Man
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YoDa 8:44PM (6/06/2008)
I remember that movie and that scene. It's after he crashed i the fountain
mk 8:46PM (6/06/2008)
Yep, securi-foam.
"then the car just turned into a giant canoli..." [/sly]
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bs 8:52PM (6/06/2008)
I might have missed something but how do the exterior airbags activate ?
the car hits you and then the airbag goes off and it basically hits you again ?
when you drive and have crash the car knows before you actually hit the steering wheel (or whatever corner of the car you choose to get to know better) but when you hit somebody there's no way the car to know before (and using proximity sensors would be out of the question)
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HotRodzNKustoms 2:33AM (6/07/2008)
exactly
Sean 2:41AM (6/07/2008)
the car hits you and then the airbag goes off and it basically hits you again ?
That's how they designed it for.
Reader 2:51AM (6/07/2008)
Well the front airbags aren't very useful for strictly a person, but they would be for someone on a bicycle or motorcycle (I'm assuming). The airbags next to the window would be cushion for anyone, bicycle or not.
LeRobert 9:13PM (6/06/2008)
If there were a law that makes it obligatory for drivers to run over jaywalkers, and that the driver will be prosecuted only when they FAIL to so do, I swear we would see less pedestrian accidents. Imagine knowing that you will most definitely be hit if you took the risk of jaywalking, would you still do so? Counter-intuitive, but it'd work.
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Rich 9:34PM (6/06/2008)
Interesting. However a law like that one would add an additional legal loophole through which careless or reckless drivers could be exonerated. Also, I'd see people jaywalking on purpose a comfortable distance in front of underpowered cars like Yarises, getting away with it, and having an accomplice prosecute the driver who failed to run over the jaywalker. It'd be a mess.
Carlos 9:18PM (6/06/2008)
Right, like all pedestrian accidents happen to jaywalkers and drivers are all saints...
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psarhjinian 9:24PM (6/06/2008)
Actually not a bad idea. My wife was run down by a guy making a fast left and not looking at all where he was going. That she survived without serious injury was more luck than anything--a lot of people end up dead or grievously injured.
And before you ask, yes, she was crossing at a three-way stop and had "white hand" signal. Or so she's been told, the brain swelling did in much of her memory of that day.
Mechanisms like these are designed to reduce the total force that a human body absorbs in such a collision. Not only does it cut down on trauma of the immediate impact, it reduces the reflection force--the energy that throws you back to the pavement--reducing the likelyhood of your head cracking off the pavement at high velocity.
I've only need hit while cycling, and while it hurt, it wasn't nearly as bad as a direct strike. Personally, I feel that even if the pedestrian is at fault, no one deserves a lifetime of physical pain or brain malfunction. I hope these show up in more cars.
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