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With ever increasing demand for vehicle safety and fuel efficiency, Body in White (BIW) designers are striving for vehicle's body mass optimization leading to the development of lean designs. Nevertheless, considerations like ergonomics also play a significant role while deciding the vehicle structure. As an example, A-pillar (front pillar) plays a major role in vehicle's passive safety. Increase in its cross section size, beyond a particular grade and gauge optimization is eminent to meet target requirements of rigidity and crash. However, the increased obstruction because of the wider section would not only lead to poor visibility and a claustrophobic feeling to the driver but also lead to a lesser response time for him or her to prevent a collision. Obstruction from A-pillar can be a subjective feeling of driver but it should also be quantified and measured to optimize the A-pillar structure. Numerous methodologies are being adopted globally to measure the A-pillar obstruction.

Estimation by World health organization reveals that by 2020, road traffic injuries may be the third leading contributor for the cause of death with significant proportion of pedestrian causalities [9]. Pedestrian safety was not considered essential for vehicle design for developing countries, due to the vehicle manufacturer's reluctance to invest in area not governed by legislation, unavailability of new car assessment programs. However, as regulatory norms are turning out to be more stringent with increased competition of NCAP star ratings, advancements in vehicle research, significant progress in this field of safety is being made without compromising on contradictory fields like vehicle low speed insurance, stiffness etc. This paper provides an insight into the recent findings at MARUTI SUZUKI INDIA'S R&D centre, aimed at improving the lower leg pedestrian performance in the new model design with special attention to NCAP ratings.