this post was submitted on 14 Dec 2023
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Except when your attention drifts away from the road at the just exact wrong moment and you get into a serious car crash with a small vehicle or pedestrian, instead of the image of the murdered human bodies crushed under the bloody hulk of your stupid pickup haunting you (and potentially your family) for the rest of your life, the low sloping hood of your sedan scooped the pedestrian up onto your hood or the bumper/crumple zone of your sedan engaged with the other vehicle and a bad day was just a really bad day.
Fuck huge pickups
I mean, the CyberTruck is much lower than those pick up trucks, and also has a slanted hood.
The truck could also pop the hood like the model 3 (edit highland, this is new feature) does to add a cushion zone for them, but it's probably still too high to be as effective on a car?
I mentioned this before, but I'm really curious if any vehicle with an air suspension could drop the car lower before the pedestrian is hit. Just like they pop the hood on the 3, could it go lower it if there's an imminent crash? Is there a way to go even lower than the lowest setting in emergencies? Seems like a good safety feature to add if not.
I'm still worried about the edge causing damage though even considering all the above, and it is still higher than a regular car.
Edit: Also if they raised the back suspension before an accident would that make for a better or worse hitting angle?
I love your thoughts here. I hadn't ever thought of ways you can last minute engineer a way for the vehicle to keep the pedestrian from being crushed rather than thrown up
Thanks =) Makes me wonder how fast you could adjust the air suspension if needed. I assume that the speed it goes up/down is probably related to comfort and durability, but how fast could they change it in an emergency situation? Maybe it's not fast enough? But maybe we could alter air suspensions in the future to have some sort of emergency drop capability that would be faster.
It would probably need a firing mechanism like airbags; that creates a vacuum in the air shocks. That would suck it down but may need to be reloaded by repair shop.
That seems worth the cost if it can save a life or reduce the damage done to one.