Google Patents Sticky Hood to Save Pedestrians

Google has patented a new sticky hood that is meant to improve pedestrian safety. 

The system is designed to have the pedestrian stick to the front end of the car in a collision, preventing them from flying away and being injured further. The patent notes that the worst injuries in pedestrian collisions often happen when the pedestrian is thrown from the vehicle, colliding with either objects or the road.

It seems obvious that a sticky front end would quickly become covered in bugs and stones, but Google has a solution. A coating would be placed over the adhesive layer that would break when the pedestrian made contact, revealing the sticky layer below.

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Besides saving people, Google also says that it would stop debris that was hit from flying away and contacting other cars or people.

Google says that this new system could work well in all vehicles, though “it may be particularly advantageous to provide a vehicle having an autonomous mode of operation with the above-described adhesive systems,” reads the patent.

[Source: The Verge]