Why keeping bumpers is a good idea

[matt993fod]

Thing is, if they worked on proximity detection, every time the boy racer behind you got close enough to your rear bumper, the whole car would turn into a popcorn ball!

[Innovator]

One of the areas of injury to pedestrians is from head contact with the bonnet. The bumper hits the legs and the body pivots, smacking the head onto the bonnet. This is a problem as due to packaging the hard engine is normally very close to the underside of the bonnet.

As part of safety rating the bonnet is tested in over its area for how quick the rate of de-acceleration is for a "head" form.

Jaguar have a pop up bonnet. So when a pedestrians legs hit the bumper the bonnet fires up at the rear and then is supported on airbags which deflate at a controlled rate. This reduces head injuries.

You could have air bags on the bonnet but there are packaging constraints and other complex problems.

Air bags inflate very quickly, in the region of 30ms. That is 30 thousands of a second!

[bigginger]

Precisely what I was getting at
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[dunketh]

What about making pedestrians wear small helmets with airbags in them?

Voila - problem solved.

As for de-bumpering.. I reversed my rear corner into a lamp post when I first got my mog. This left no discernible damage at al other than a gash in the side of the lamp post.
I'd hate to think how my rear light cluster/wing would have held up on their own.

[Wagoneer]

Better than removing the bumpers to clean the lines up is to lessen the distance between the bumper and the body, and remove the overriders.

As an ex Volvo 245 owner I value bumpers in low speed impacts!

[paulk]

As an ex Volvo 245 owner I value bumpers in low speed impacts

I had one of these and they aren't bumpers.

They are supermarket parking aids. Just keep reversing into the parking space untill you gently bounce off that annoying low metal bar that you can't see cos its only 18" high.
Just think of them as a tactial version of the parking bleepers