It was still going pretty strong but vehicle tech advances rather quickly these days that after about a decade there is really a sizable improvement in safety.
[1] https://www.iihs.org/news/detail/new-study-suggests-todays-s...
[2] https://www.ghsa.org/sites/default/files/2021-03/Ped%20Spotl...
[3] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/oct/03/collision...
IIHS is changing tests now to incorporate pedestrian safety tests. NHTSA is also considering the change.
It's design nonsense and the only reason it ever got this bad is the regulators are fully captured.
The airbags inside the car are meant to cushion the hard surfaces of course and the curtain bags are meant to keep people and their limbs in the protective passenger area when the car spins, but also they are acting as a counterforce and slow the speed of the person a little more gently, versus an instant stop to a solid object such as the dashboard, causing internal injuries as well as the external trauma.
Also airbags are a very good reason to wear a seatbelt - if you pop the airbags while colliding at relatively slow speeds, you'll probably lean forward a bit from the deceleration only to be punched in the face by the bag (and probably get some vertebrae renovated).
So while installing external airbags to cushion the pedestrian impact sounds like a good idea it probably isn't, as the bag suddenly expanding from the direction of the vehicle would simply add to the energy and "punch" the pedestrian away from the car at the 200mph at which an airbag expands.
Lastly, I'm all in for the gel from Demolition Man, why aren't we funding it?? Would it come in different scents and colors? :-D Really the car could one day - when detecting an unavoidable collision - spray out a foam or expanding gel that would cushion the surfaces and also decelerate the fall of the pedestrian - I'm thinking Final Fantasy Spirits Within -soldiers drop gel"?
It seems like such an airbag could be used to lessen the impact of vehicle-to-vehicle collisions as well. Perhaps have multiple inflators so the car can select air pressure based on the projected force of impact.
Airbag suits are available now for motorcycle riders, external car airbags would kind of be just a larger (potentially more complex) variant of the same idea.
Consequences for injuring or killing pedestrians only seem to enter the equation when serious negligence is involved, like when drivers are intoxicated, or when there is a hit-and-run.
"When a car strikes a cyclist, the initial impact causes severe lower-body trauma, but it’s also likely to sweep that person’s legs out from underneath them. This is significant, because as the rider slides up the hood, they’re scrubbing speed and, with it, some impact force. An SUV or truck, by contrast, is taller, so the initial impact is likely to target the pelvis or even the chest. “That momentum is carried through your body,” says Hu. In addition, the front-end shape of a vehicle is vital. More than 85 percent of fatalities among pedestrians and cyclists hit by cars and light trucks involve impacts from the front of the vehicle, according to 2017 data from the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration. Modern truck and full-size SUVs favor blocky, muscular styling at the front end, rather than the more gently sloping transition from grille to hood that cars and some compact SUVs have. Instead of sliding onto the hood when hit by a truck, the rider’s pelvis and torso rotate with a twisting, tearing motion. With a squared-off front end, Hu says, “it’s basically the person wrapping around the vehicle.”"
https://www.outsideonline.com/2411345/suvs-trucks-deadly-cyc...
Why isn't the same true for pedestrians and bicyclists?
https://www.iihs.org/news/detail/study-highlights-rising-ped...
I know an older couple with two vehicles from 2008 with 36k and 54k miles on them. They are in great shape, always parked in the garage at home, etc. While their natural life might be 150k, it's very likely they will be in a junkyard before then. Part availability becomes an increasing concern.
From an environmental standpoint, old cars were manufactured under less stringent emissions standards. At a certain point, the emissions required to manufacture a car are more than offset by the marginally lower emissions from a new vehicle.
From an environmental standpoint, the benefit would be on vehicles where parts get more difficult to find or the owner deems the vehicle to be lacking sufficient safety features (and possibly both, a couple hundred dollar repair prompting the owner to retire the car).
I don't have any numbers to estimate the impact, it's my shower thought for how to maximize asset utilization and minimize vehicle deaths.
What does any of that have to do with the environmental standpoint?
The most extreme example would be a car with a catastrophic failure that will happen at 200k miles, but the owner only drives 1k miles per year. Parts will become an issue far before the useful life of the vehicle is up. The resale value would be basically 0 after 50 years because everything is so out of date, from safety features to creature comforts.
I'm personally driving a 2010 Civic which just crossed 100k miles, and a 2009 CR-V with 140k miles. The Civic will likely be sold in the next few years pursuing an upgrade to safety while it would still have a ton of life left in it. It'll probably go to some high school kid who is learning to drive, and its end of life will more likely be due to a crash.
I just put money into the Civic for wheel bearings (likely needed because it sat most of 2020), transmission fluid, and brake fluid, and the CR-V checked out fine at its oil change. In ~75k miles, we have only done front suspension, tires, wheel alignments, oil changes, and a set of brakes on the CR-V. It spent a couple years in a town with terrible roads, which I point to as the primary reason for the suspension breaking.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimgorzelany/2018/05/11/newer-c...
I think it was not mandated into US law until about a decade ago, but some OEMs have offered it since 1987, like Mercedes Benz
Didn't have any airbags at all. Not illegal in the rest of the world but I think they didn't sell them in the US.
The UK, but it was the same model they sold everywhere that they sold them.
This 2009 Land Rover model had front, side, and overhead airbags, ESC, ABS, etc.
But the model I had didn't, and didn't anywhere it was sold. Do you think I'm mistaken about my own car or something?
So you are most certainly mistaken about the claim that it is sold "everywhere", although you have since edited that to be restricted to "where they sold them" which conveniently excludes all the places where it simply couldn't be sold.
I'm obviously not going to be mistaken about my own car, am I?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_Rover_Defender#2012_updat...
Selling as late as 2016 with no air bags, in many Western first-world nations, obviously including such as the UK where it was built, but I think also France, Germany, etc.
In fact they even specifically say:
> However, safety regulations due for introduction in 2015 requiring minimum pedestrian safety standards and the fitment of airbags to commercial vehicles cannot be met without a wholesale redesign of the Defender.
Another source.
https://www.carbuyer.co.uk/reviews/land-rover/defender/sport...
Which says:
> it was never fitted with any airbags
And we can see when you edit your comments, because I already quoted them.
The original claim you wrote 'So either your vehicle was sold in no first-world nations, or you are indeed mistaken.' is clearly false.
It's funny that you bring up editing, because the single thing I was replying to was your original claim that your airbag-less vehicle was the same model they sold "everywhere" (which you later edited because of course the vehicle was illegal in a number of nations). I never contested that you bought some bizarrely outdated vehicle in the UK in 2009. If I edited a comment, I made it more accurate immediately, and it's incredibly strange that you think you've caught me out.
I truly don't care about your strange retro vehicle. But in this conversation it is so hilariously irrelevant to the context.
Yeah everywhere they sold the Defender, they sold it without airbags. That's always what I said, and it's true.
> I never contested that you bought some bizarrely outdated vehicle in the UK in 2009
You said 'your vehicle was sold in no first-world nations'. This a demonstrably untrue statement, because it was sold in at least the UK.
It's not as crazy as it sounds; with the front-impact ones, wearing your seatbelt works about as well, and you don't have to worry about Takata syndrome.
This was apparently because at that point, manufacturers could get out of putting in front airbags if they put in those automatic should belts. Not sure when that was tightened up.
A lot of the more recent improvements seem to be trying to compensate for either gross driver failures or much reduced visibility with modern vehicle designs. It will be interesting to see whether they end up significantly improving safety overall or just cancelling out the negative effects of less careful driving and less visibility.
Age is being used as a really sloppy proxy for safety features, when a lot of these things were completely standard 10 years ago. As mentioned in another post, a 2009 Range Rover came with every major safety feature.
Most people are not letting "never in a lifetime" frequency events have more than tertiary influence over major purchasing decisions.