New technology is being developed that would reduce deaths and serious injuries resulting from pedestrian accidents on our roads.

Currently pedestrian accidents are responsible for almost 700 road deaths each year in the UK, with around 6,400 other receiving serious injuries.

For many years the development of driver and passenger safety has been the focus of reducing casualties from car accidents, with very little consideration given to pedestrians injured in accidents.

The new safety measures to help protect pedestrians works by detecting when the car is about to be in a collision with a pedestrian, it automatically raises the rear of the bonnet and a large airbag is deployed in front of the windscreen.

The pedestrian’s injuries are reduced by the raised bonnet absorbing some of the impact and the airbag cushioning impact with the windscreen and its frame.

The research which forms part of the European Union funded Integrated Project on Advanced Protection Systems (APROSYS) being led by Roger Hardy of the Cranfield Impact Centre at Cranfield University, carried out tests on the new technology using a Fiat Stilo with encouraging results.

In tests a standard pedestrian dummy was involved in simulated car accidents which resulted in Head Impact Criterion (HIC) scale score of around 1,000.

When the new safety technology was added, pedestrian dummies hitting the bonnet recorded scores between 234 and 682, whilst the windscreen airbag scored between 692 and 945.

Also being designed is a windscreen mounting that has a Z-shaped section of metal separating the windscreen from its frame. On impact this cushions the impact with estimates suggesting it may reduce HIC scores by up to 50%.