Google awarded patent for external air bags for driverless vehicles

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (KGO) -- Google's driverless cars could have a unique feature to protect people in accidents involving pedestrians. The company was awarded a patent this week, for airbags that go on the outside of the car. According to the patent, the airbags would have a sensor that would trigger them to deploy moments before a collision happened.

The airbags would likely be made out a different material than traditional airbags which could cause a pedestrian to bounce off the vehicle upon impact.