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]
