Automotive Lighting takes up the challenge. We make an active contribution to the topic of pedestrian protection. Dependent on the vehicle category and the front design, the headlamps are located in or near the impact region of the upper leg, the child head or the lower leg impactors. On one hand,  headlamps must absorb the impact energy in a defined way along with the surrounding components, while load peaks caused by internal collisions have to be avoided. On the other hand, headlamps should not cause additional injuries which may result from splinters.

Automotive Lighting owns a drop tower to make important preliminary investigations with complete headlamps. Components tests with various impactors can be carried out. The crash of the impactors can be simulated with the existing CAD data on a computer. One of the first steps for Automotive Lighting is to determine the behaviour of the various kinds of plastics used in a headlamp. Automotive Lighting create the basic knowledge with an external research institute. The pedestrian protection simulation process is supported by external and internal know how. The crash system "pedestrian protection" goes beyond  headlamps. All parts at the front of the vehicle are affected. Therefore Automotive Lighting does research in cooperation with several European vehicle manufacturers on solutions regarding headlamps in its surroundings.

The directive will be implemented in two phases. For the evaluation, several component tests are intended: there are test forms that emulate a lower leg, upper leg, child head and an adult head. These forms, so-called impactors, are shot onto the front end of the vehicle with a defined mass and at defined angles and velocities. Phase 1 will start in September 2005. Each vehicle must pass the prescribed pedestrian protection tests for the homologation. Limit values for the child head and lower leg impact must be observed, the other test results will be used for monitoring. However, these results do not have any influence on the homologation of the vehicle. With phase 2, the requirements are increased. Starting in October 2010, there are also limit values for the adult head and the upper leg impact. However, there are independent testing institutes and associations, such as Euro-NCAP, which are already testing with stricter criteria and assign stars for the pedestrian protection similarly to the passenger safety (star-rating).