- Subaru’s new Forester features the world’s first airbag designed specifically for cyclists.
- The technology previously focused on pedestrians only, but is now larger to help both groups.
- This life-saving feature is Japan-only for now, with no North American release confirmed yet.
Car safety has come a long way from the days of steel dashboards and seatbelt-optional cruising. Still, no one wants to be in an accident, no matter how many features modern vehicles pack in. When crashes do happen, airbags offer clear and proven benefits. That’s why Subaru just rolled out an updated cyclist-safe exterior airbag on the newly refreshed Forester in Japan. This builds on an earlier design Subaru first introduced in 2016.
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That year, the Japanese brand introduced pedestrian safety airbags on the Impreza, WRX, Legacy, Crosstrek, and Levorg. They worked by inflating a bag near the top of the hood, and, in effect, they provided a soft place for a pedestrian’s head to land in the event of a crash. Cyclists are naturally higher up off of the ground, so it didn’t work as well for them.
A New Take on Cyclist Safety
To address this issue, Subaru just changed the airbag to extend up the sides of the windshield. This protects cyclists from the A-pillar, one of the strongest parts of the car. In addition, it adjusted the way the upper and lower panels of the airbag attach, which keeps it in place for both cyclists and pedestrians. Subaru says this is the first airbag of its kind in the world, which sounds right.
At the same time, this is far from the first time that airbags have been applied to cyclists. It’s just the first time that we’ve seen it done precisely this way. In the past, safety advocates have created wearable airbags for cyclists to wear themselves. For example, the Helite B’Safe wearable vest airbag expands similarly to the way a wearable inflatable device from an airplane would, only much faster.
While it offers some protection, it’s not wildly popular in the cycling community and costs several hundred dollars. As such, it’s great to see automakers like Subaru thinking about how to protect all riders regardless of what they’re wearing.
Read: Your Reflective Jacket Could Be Making Pedestrian Safety Tech Less Effective
Unfortunately, this particular airbag appears to be only available on the Japanese-market Forester that launched today. We reached out to Subaru USA to ask whether the feature might eventually make it stateside, but we hadn’t heard back at the time of publishing.
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Credit: Car Watch Channel
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