On 13 September 2021, five-year-old Allie Hart was doing something ordinary - riding her bike on a pedestrian crossing near her home in Washington, DC.For Allie's mother, Jessica Hart, "My whole world was shattered." Yet, she says, nothing changed in the outside world to safeguard people like Allie.
Yet some well-established safety features are not always integrated into new vehicles, safety ratings and regulations. A relatively simple design transition has been toward more flexible materials, including smoothing out areas of the bonnet where struck pedestrians are likely to hit their heads. "Anything stiff is bad for a pedestrian," Mr Thompson explains.
Passive safety is no substitute for active safety features. "You can make a vehicle as benign for pedestrians as possible. But it's better to prevent that crash in the first place," Mr Thompson points out.