Exterior airbags would make driving a lot easier. For example, someone in the lane beside you tries to cut you off to pass traffic. The person is a bad driver as you can tell, you also see the 'N' sign on his car as well. Without exterior airbags, you would have a nice big dent. Sure, you get a little money, but it doesn't cover the damage done to your beloved car/truck (for trucks it costs more to repair for a same size dent, so all smaller one would be about the same price as a car's dent.) With the airbags, a motion sensor would pick up a moving object coming towards you, signalling to a tiny chip in the dashboard than would open a small (near invisible) hatch tucked nicely beside the door, inflating the airbags and minimizing damage. Also, if your car falls in water, the compressed air in the airbags would keep you afloat. Later models might include a small outboard attachment or a leak-proof exterior.-- croissantz, Jul 17 2004 Baked http://www.drive.co...e.aspx?id=1821&vf=1by Citroen [pashute, Feb 08 2006] Funny!! http://www.alldumb.com/item/17423/Exterior airbag image [pashute, Feb 09 2006] not bad bruv...could do with some refinement, nevertheless - bun-- shinobi, Jul 17 2004 baked (by citroen for example, see link) but still great idea.
Seems somehow you lost a croissant from [shinboni] in the HB crash. Maybe there should be a website airbag.-- pashute, Feb 08 2006 How is the system supposed to know whether the approaching object will in fact hit you? If the airbag deploys in a case when the object would have otherwise missed your vehicle, you have needlessly caused damage to your car (airbag units are not cheap) and possibly caused harm to the other driver or his vehicle.-- supercat, Feb 09 2006 random, halfbakery