This Subaru has an external airbag to protect cyclists

If someone driving a new version of a Subaru Forester crashes into a cyclist, an airbag will immediately inflate on the hood to help protect the person on the bike.

The SUV, which offers the feature only on vehicles sold in Japan, isn’t the first Subaru to include an external airbag. The company started including pedestrian protection airbags on its Japanese cars nearly a decade ago. But the brand says the new design is the first in the world intended to also protect cyclists.

It’s a basic, commonsense idea. “Airbags have been proven to be effective to protect the occupants in a vehicle,” says Ben Crowther, policy director for America Walks, a nonprofit focused on walkability and safety. “And there’s plenty of testing to show that the same is true for people outside vehicles.”

The Forester’s hood is also designed to have as few hard parts as possible, and to easily deform to help cushion the impact of a crash. But the bottom edge of the windshield and the pillars that go up to the roof have to stay rigid because they’re part of the frame. When a pedestrian is hit by a car, head injuries are most likely in those places—and that’s where Subaru’s U-shaped airbag can help.

In a crash, the cyclist usually ends up higher on the windshield. That’s why the company redesigned its airbag to cover a larger area. The system deploys when sensors detect a certain amount of pressure on the front bumper.

The vehicle has a suite of other safety features. When a driver turns on the turn signal at a corner, for example, the headlights light up an area diagonally in front, making it easier to spot pedestrians or cyclists on the road. A set of three cameras and radar offer a wider-angle view than in the brand’s previous cars, so it’s more likely to spot other road users. The vehicle also aims to reduce blind spots in all directions. These are all efforts toward Subaru’s goal to have no traffic deaths involving its cars by 2030.

Of course, it’s possible to go even further—one of the best ways to make vehicles safer is to make them smaller. Beyond car design, infrastructure also obviously matters: With separated bike lanes, for example, a crash is less likely in the first place. Speed limits are critical. If you’re a pedestrian who gets hit by a car going 20 mph, one study found that you have a 5% chance of being killed. If the car is going 30 mph, that chance jumps to 45%. At 40 mph, the pedestrian’s chance of being killed is roughly 80%. (Japan has lower average speed limits than the U.S., along with other policies that support pedestrian safety, and much lower fatality rates for pedestrians and cyclists in traffic accidents.)

External airbags aren’t a panacea, but they can help. It’s probably unlikely, though, that they’ll show up in the U.S. anytime soon, especially as automakers are already struggling to deal with increased manufacturing costs because of tariffs.

And while the Biden administration was working on safety issues related to vehicle design, it’s not clear what will happen with policy now. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy “has certainly touted safety as something that his U.S. DOT wants to pursue,” Crowther says. “But there’s a lot of mixed messages, particularly through the reducing in staff at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.” The cuts at NHTSA made by the Department of Government Efficiency earlier this year disproportionately affected employees working on vehicle safety, according to reports.

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