New Safety Challenge

Car Makers Work on Designs to Reduce Pedestrian Deaths and Injuries

By Todd Zaun

What costs more than a million dollars, wears a bright-blue jump suit and has been run over more times than the speed bump in a fast-food drive-through lane?

It’s Honda Motor’s latest crash-test dummy, a simulated pedestrian called Polar II that is starting to influence how the company builds cars.

Automotive engineers have spent decades improving passenger safety, equipping cars with better seat belts, air bags and traction-control systems. Now, car makers and safety regulators are starting to pay more attention to people outside the vehicle, and the tens of thousands of deaths and injuries that result when drivers crash vehicles into people on bicycles and on foot.

In the U.S. alone, 5,600 pedestrians and cyclists were killed by cars in 2001, and 123,000 more people were injured, according to data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

SUV Threat

Pedestrian deaths overall are declining, but the increase in sales of sport-utility vehicles is a troubling trend for people worried about pedestrian safety. A study published last year in the journal Accident Analysis & Prevention found that a pedestrian struck by an SUV is twice as likely to die as a pedestrian struck by a car.

In the European Union, some 8,000 pedestrians and cyclists are killed and 300,000 more are injured annually as the result of car accidents. Tough regulations for new vehicles go into effect there next year, and the EU hopes to reduce the annual death count to 2,000 by 2010.

In Japan, some 2,500 pedestrians and bikers are killed and 80,000 injured by automobiles every year. There has been a steady rise in the number of elderly pedestrians killed or injured by cars in recent years, as Japan’s population ages. Japanese traffic-safety authorities also plan to raise the bar on pedestrian-safety standards next year.

Honda’s focus on pedestrian safety is part of a broader effort at the company to reduce deaths and injuries in auto accidents. Honda says the campaign, which it calls "Safety for Everyone," is motivated by a sense of social responsibility. But officials also acknowledge a marketing advantage: a safety focus helps the relatively small car maker differentiate itself from larger competitors. And years of record profits for Honda have given the company greater flexibility to add safety enhancements to its vehicles without having to raise prices.

Honda’s pedestrian-safety quest began under the company’s chief safety engineer, Tomiji Sugimoto, in 1996. Among the reams of official accident statistics that year, one struck the executive as especially troubling—that pedestrians made up 28% of Japanese traffic-accident fatalities. By 2002, the portion would rise to 30%, compared with 11% in the U.S.

Japan, with its narrow roads and overcrowded sidewalks, is a treacherous place to be a pedestrian. Mr. Sugimoto says Honda and other car makers weren’t doing enough to prevent their deaths. "Nobody was interested in pedestrian protection," he says. "We couldn’t understand anything about how to protect them." Until the 1990s, about the only thing car makers did to make vehicles less lethal to people on the street was to eliminate heavy hood ornaments and pointy decorations on side mirrors and hubcaps.

Since it was run down for the first time three years ago, Polar II has suggested ways designers can reduce pedestrians’ injuries and improve their odds of survival if struck by a car. Research using the dummy has led to some noticeable changes in the shapes of Hondas.

In Japan, the most common cause of pedestrian death in traffic accidents is head injury, resulting from being thrown against the hood of the car, Mr. Sugimoto says. To try to prevent such injuries, Honda has raised the hood on the latest Accord sedan and other vehicles, creating a larger gap above the hard engine block. The extra space gives the hood more space in which to crumple and to absorb the impact of collision. Honda also is equipping cars with fatter, softer bumpers, which it says are less likely to cause serious leg injuries.

Existing crash-test dummies were designed to mimic passengers and so were of little help in demonstrating how cars injure pedestrians. To build a more human-like pedestrian dummy, Mr. Sugimoto sought data on the strength and flexibility of human bone, muscle and ligament. Honda completed its first pedestrian dummy in 1998. Specifically designed to be run over by cars, Polar II has artificial joints and ligaments, and sensors to measure impacts to the head, chest, abdomen and legs.

Running Lamps

Other car makers are relying on computers, not dummies, to do similar work. "We think most of what we want to learn about pedestrian interaction we want to do with computer modeling," says Robert Lange, General Motors’ executive director for structure and safety integration.

GM has centered much of its pedestrian-protection research in Europe in advance of the tougher new regulations, including hoods that crumple more easily. Regulators in Europe and Japan will test new cars by firing a dummy head at a vehicle’s hood to measure the likelihood of a serious injury.

In the U.S., where there aren’t specific pedestrian-protection design standards, GM is pushing federal regulators to require that all vehicles to be equipped with daytime running lights (a feature already standard on most GMs). Mr. Lange says GM vehicles equipped with these lights, which are on whenever the car is running, have had 9% fewer pedestrian collisions compared with vehicles without them.

Honda’s pedestrian-safety drive has faced some resistance from the company’s own designers, Mr. Sugimoto says. Taller hoods may mean sacrificing some of a car’s low-slung sporty design. But the resistance is unlikely to slow the moves, Mr. Sugimoto says. Meanwhile, Honda engineers are working on more-stylish measures to make vehicles safer for pedestrians. One idea: a hood that would pop up slightly after hitting a pedestrian, to create a crumple zone. "There’s still a lot we can do to protect pedestrians," he says.

What can drivers and pedestrians do themselves

to help cut down on pedestrian deaths in accidents?

Write to letters.classroom@wsj.com