This safety feature on the car looks like black technology, but it is actually a scam

With the continuous advancement of automobile technology, more and more high-tech configurations are applied to automobiles. Take safety configuration for example. Almost no safety configuration is useless. Whether it is active safety or passive safety system, it is either to prevent accidents or to minimize the loss of vehicles and passengers when accidents occur. In short, it is beneficial to car owners. Many people may not know that there is also a safety configuration called active hood pedestrian protection system. This function is a device to protect pedestrians when vehicles collide with pedestrians.

This device is installed on many models such as Honda Accord, Jaguar XF, Mercedes-Benz Mazda MX-5, etc. First, let me tell you what this function is used for. When the vehicle detects that it is about to collide with a pedestrian, this system will control the hood to bounce up, so that when the pedestrian is hit, he will not hit the hard hood directly, but will be caught by the bounced hood, which plays a good buffering role, thus minimizing the damage to the pedestrian caused by the collision. This function seems to be very good, but the actual effect is not satisfactory.

Why do I say that? Just two days ago, I saw a news story on the Internet. It said that a car owner in Japan was driving a Mazda MX-5 on the road when a cat suddenly rushed out from the roadside. The owner braked suddenly and did not hit anything, but the pedestrian protection system worked automatically. Because the hood was popped open, not only could the car continue to drive, but the owner also had to face a financial loss of 200,000 yen. Think about it, the car owner did not have an accident, but he had to pay for the car repair out of his own pocket. How aggrieved he was.

Such accidents are not unique to Mazda. There have also been many similar incidents on the tenth-generation Accord in China. Some car owners have hit small animals rushing out from the roadside while driving, and some have hit the curb or other obstacles when parking without paying attention. There have been all kinds of strange experiences, but they have never hit pedestrians. Everyone knows that after the vehicle airbag pops out in an accident, the entire center console assembly needs to be replaced, and the hood pedestrian protection system also needs to replace many parts. However, the maintenance cost is higher, reaching more than 10,000 yuan. If you encounter such accidents a few more times, I am afraid that the money for repairing the car can buy another car.

Regarding this safety configuration, the hood pedestrian protection system installed in some Mercedes-Benz models is more user-friendly. In an emergency, the motor of Mercedes-Benz's system can control the hood hinge and use the spring to pop up the hood. The driver can then manually close the hood to restore it. Compared with the way the hood pops up due to gunpowder explosion on other models, the owner can save a lot of repair costs after an accident.

The active hood pedestrian protection system is indeed a very good configuration that can protect pedestrians, but most sensors are tuned too sensitive and cannot correctly identify pedestrians most of the time. In general, it is still too idealistic. In fact, the probability of hitting pedestrians when we are actually driving is much smaller than the probability of hitting other obstacles or rear-end collisions. Not to mention hitting flowers and plants, if you encounter a hit-and-runner, you will have to spend tens of thousands of yuan to repair the car. Where can you go to cry? Anyway, the editor thinks this function is useless. What do you think?