It's funny how some ideas are so blindingly obvious that you wonder why others don't see it. Take Scania's deformable nose concept, unveiled some four or so years ago, designed to reduce the impact in the event of a frontal impact between a car and a truck. As Biglorryblog's recalls the honeycomb structure stuck out some 600mm or so in front of a regular R cab, which would naturally have meant it exceeded the 16.5m long artic limit. However, as I recall the Swedes presented the idea to the Brussels Bureaucrats with the intention of getting them to extend artic length limits (or at least offer a dispensation for 'nose-job' tractors) along with arguments that it could cut EU road deaths and serious injuries arising from car/truck head-ons. Sadly it was never adopted. Pity really as it looked to have obvious merits to me and there was even said to be an aerodynamic bonus too.
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