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I mean, this advice is pretty firmly held for hitting things like animals. Albeit for other reasons -- it helps prevent them from going over the hood and towards the windshield.

Generally the pitch won't matter that much in vehicle-to-vehicle collisions. Only when the pitch would angle the front bumper completely under the other vehicle, which I admit isn't much of a concern. And not really a concern at all in vehicle-to-barrier collisions.

However, if we're talking about idealized automated driving systems, I hold by my original assertion. I would expect such a system to be able to correctly analyze when releasing the brake right before collision to reduce pitch would be beneficial.




Accelerating into an animal to increase car's pitch is something I had heard growing up in deer country, but it seems to be a myth: http://www.discovery.com/tv-shows/mythbusters/mythbusters-da...


That seems like a silly idea; the pitch change is not nearly as drastic as during braking. Cars decelerate faster than they accelerate. I don't know of any car that can go 0-60 in 100 feet, but there are plenty of cars that can go 60-0 in that distance:

http://www.motortrend.com/news/20-best-60-to-0-distances-rec...

Advice I've seen is to brake as hard as you can to shed energy, then release the brake to correct the pitch as close to collision as you can time it. No acceleration involved.




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