That’s strange since the Cybertruck doesn’t meet European regulations (at the very least UN-R26) due to pedestrian safety. Not sure if there is a workaround if someone imports it as their personal vehicle though.
What are these? Have you seen a hummer or a ford F2 or f350? What about a Lexus LS or GX? Cadillac Escalade or Lincoln Navigator?
What about a Camry other than its size specifically is for pedestrians when hit?
Then we have the smart car. A small bubble designed to not crush. Fairly sure if that thing hits somebody they are not going to be “gee I am glad that the car makers made this car so safe for me being hit by it”
I can think very hard what a car would look like that would be pedestrian safe, and what features it would have. And none of any cars today look like they would be safe.
As for features for safety only one comes in mind, automatic breaking for pedestrians.
As for the cyber truck. The bend up front looks a lot more safe than most of the other pointy cars.
Normally new cars should come with emergency braking. As I remember, emergency braking is the only new technology to challenge the seat belt in efficiency. All the other safety features are almost marginal on how effective they are.
I don't know if the cybertruck has it, but I think the EU regulations might be a little behind the times, not yet recognizing the efficiency of emergency braking.
Emergency breaking system have been a mandatory assistance system for a while now (afaik it was introduced mid 2022). Admittedly, I don’t know how efficient they actually are in preventing injuries from pedestrians.
I just know that from my experience driving with these systems, they occasionally do seem not quite there. I’ve had my car warn me from hitting a guy that was happily walking on the sidewalk but completely ignore people taking a pedestrian crossing (maybe because I was already breaking myself).
So yeah, tech is great and all. But having design considerations as a completely passive system like your front bumper breaking off on colission still seems essential
TL;DR it’s about being low enough to not smack people of different heights in the head and cause massive acceleration of their brains against their skulls. Same with internal organs, and for legs it’s more about having some of that energy transferred into rotational energy, then having a soft-enough bumper and hood to again minimize acceleration forces and energy transfer.
There are also airbag-based solutions where it either inflates under the hood to give some cushion for the hit person to decelerate more gradually before stopping against something less forgiving, or kinda like a giant couch / Wacky Races cartoon catcher’s mitt inflating on the hood and front of the vehicle before they’re actually hit.
The pushback is, of course, mostly cost-based.
https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2007/12/the-truth-about-eu...
https://americawalks.org/vehicle-safety-for-pedestrians/
I just wish that the US would stop allowing people to build and operate killdozer pickups with bumpers well above where other vehicle bumpers are. When those crash into other vehicles, the other vehicle ends up with a differential, tires, and probably skid plates smacking into their vehicle, which it’s not designed to handle. Combined with how larger tires require more braking power to slow at the same rate, plus modified suspension geometry, higher CG, increased weight, and decreased driver intelligence, it makes for a much more dangerous vehicle for others to be around. Why do we continue to allow this, just like all the obnoxious modified exhausts and ECU tunes that massively increase the pollution being put out by one vehicle so they can feed their egos and intimidate other road users?
Higher bumpers are also a lot less safe for pedestrians, obviously: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15949454/
Stuff like this has no legitimate purpose off-road and no business being operated on public highways: https://www.tiktok.com/@leanqueen6.7 but it’s become some idiotic macho culture thing.