Google’s self-driving car could use adhesive to keep people from being thrown in pedestrian accidents

Google has filed for an interesting patent related to vehicles, something we imagine the company is primarily seeking for their self-driving car efforts. The patent details a system that uses adhesive on the front parts of a car.

The adhesive would be covered with an egg-like coating to protect it during normal driving, but upon crashing that protection can be broken with enough force to expose the adhesive. It’s primarily for pedestrian accidents where a car might crash into a person.

The adhesive would keep the pedestrian glued to the front of the car. Why is this useful if they were already hit? Well, if you’ve ever been the unfortunate witness (or participant) of a pedestrian accident, you’ll know that potential follow-up damage can be more damning than the crash itself. You thought hitting the hood of a car was enough? Imagine (or don’t, if you’re queasy) someone getting flown forward onto hard pavement, then potentially getting run over.

Yea, we like this idea, and even if a self-driving car is considered to be safer than actual human drivers we’d want this technology on the car just in case. Hell, let’s make it an industry standard. Go for it, Google!

[via Engadget]