I Don't Know How Pedestrians Are Going to See Skoda's Grille Warnings in Time

Image: Skoda

For some unknown reason, people in cities refuse to stay cooped up in their homes and insist on walking around outside even though everyone knows that outside is specifically reserved for cars. That means that while driving around like a normal person, you run the risk of getting pedestrian gunk all over the front of your car if you so much as Facetime your friend or lean over to pick up the burrito you dropped. But Skoda thinks it has a solution.

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Skoda is once again trumpeting its LED grille to communicate with pedestrians. If the car is driving too fast to stop in time for a person to cross, the grille can turn red and display caution triangles to let them know to stay out of your way. If you decide to stop and let a pedestrian cross at the intersection they insist on using instead of driving as they should be, the grille will show a green arrow and a little picture of a person to signal that you don’t plan to run them over.

The problem is, unlike cars, pedestrians move annoyingly slowly. Are they really going to see the warning in time to get out of your way? It seems like by the time a person is close enough to read a grille, they’re going to be dangerously close to your car, and you’ll probably hit them anyway. Also, how does this tell someone to get out of your way while you’re making a right turn on red any better than your horn does?

Some car-haters will say that you shouldn’t be driving so fast in a pedestrian area that you can’t stop in time to avoid hitting a pedestrian, but that’s clearly wrong. As we’ve already established, outside is for driving cars, not walking out of your apartment to grab a drink at the bar across the street. What kind of degenerate weirdo would do that when they could get in their car and simply drive to the bar across the street?