Has anybody seen this? Apparently this is a feature of the Volvo C30:
Pedestrian Protection - Unprotected Road Users

Dang! I got hit by a Pontiac. I shoulda held out for Volvo.

Actually, several auto makers seem to be moving to the cow / pedestrian catcher design to sweep those bothersome critters up or to the side when you decide to plow into them. Ford and Government Motors seem to be the most resistant to putting the cow catcher design on their models.

Worked pretty well to keep the Brazil driver ramming through a Critical Mass ride from killing any of the cyclist.

A whole lot of Crash Test Dummies died during development of the C30.

This design concept has been made mandatory by the EU starting in 2014...

I see this as a bad and good thing, I mean really they are designing them to hit people (you know what I mean by that) sorry I couldn't think of a better way to word it.

Yeah, tsl, getting hit by a volvo won't hurt at all!

FYI, Honda has been doing this for years and Volvo drivers need all the help they can get.

Clearly you all bike too much, and drive too little -- this has been a huge discussion in the automotive press/ car design circles for several years, as it really 'ruins' the looks of many cars. ;-)

They still have Government Motors.

A few years ago the EU was looking into designs of airbags on the hood to lessen the damages to the pedestrians who got hit. I'm not sure if the economics of the bags killed it or if it was just the aesthetics.

I think a better safety design would be to remove the seat belts and airbags from the driver's seat, make the steering column rigid and add some sort of lethal blades to the center of the steering wheel so that the driver has a much greater chance of death in the event of an "accident" than anyone else. If nothing else it would remove "accident" prone motorists from the roadways.

It was probably done in by the test engineers having to comb nearby forests for the crash test dummies after the exploding airbags launched 'em.

Improved safety features have definitely insulated today's motorists from the amount of potential damage/injury they can inflict.

i want to go test this thing out!!!!!

Actually, 2001 Honda Civics are pretty good in that regard. I rear ended one with my bike last year. Nearly totaled the car, but I was back at work the following Monday.

The EU is so ahead of the pack on a lot of safety issues. Three cheers for the EU.

This is the "same feature" in Australia, complete with commentary.

Nice sentiment.

And my daughter wants to GO there.....

I'm amazed the driver knew enough people to make sure all those words were correctly spelled.



SOOOOOOOOOO,.......................Volvo's front end is knee-friendly, eh? Wonder if it's back-wheel-friendly, too...?

I don't see it hurting much less. You are probably still going to fly up and hit the windshield.

Also, I'd hate to hit a deer while driving one of those.

Cool. Now all we need now are competent drivers.

Too bad I'm not a pedestrian cyclist, then.

I think the new C30 also provides an interior LatteGuard(c) to protect passengers from hot beverage burns in the event of a post-drive thru accident

The link only says it reduces injury to cyclists! Does that mean instead of instant death, it would be a slower death? Or maybe it reduces the number of days in the hospital?

Mooo. Mooooooooo. Moo. Mooooooo. Plop. Plop. Ploppity Plop.


Moo.

Umm, this is not unique to Australia. . ..

Plenty of these morans in Idaho

I think the list would shorter if you listed states/nations that DIDN'T have idiots like that.