Patent ID: 8534410

Claim:
A pedestrian protection device for a vehicle, which is provided at a front portion of a vehicle body, comprising, an engine room, a cowl box which is provided at an upper portion of a dash panel partitioning the engine room from a vehicle compartment and extends in a vehicle width direction, and an engine hood which is pivotally supported at the vehicle body via a first hinge provided at a rear end portion thereof so as to cover over the engine room, wherein the pedestrian protection device comprises, an engine-hood guide mechanism which guides the engine hood upwardly and rearwardly so as to cover at least part of the cowl box when a collision of a pedestrian against a front end portion of the vehicle body is detected or predicted, and lowers the engine hood downwardly when a load acting on the engine hood exceeds a specified load; said engine-hood guide mechanism comprising an actuator which moves the engine hood upwardly and a move mechanism which moves the engine hood rearwardly as the engine hood rises, at least one of a collision predicting sensor generating a signal in response to a predetermined position of a pedestrian and a collision detecting sensor generating a signal in response to a collision with a pedestrian; and a releasing signal generator generating a releasing signal for the actuator based the signal generated by at least one of the collision predicting sensor and the collision detecting sensor; wherein a striker is provided at a front end portion of the engine hood, a latch to engage with the striker to secure a closing state of the engine hood is provided at the vehicle body, and said actuator comprises a releasing device to release an engagement of the striker and the latch in accordance with an operation of the actuator, wherein a move-amount adjusting portion to adjust the amount of upward-and-rearward move of the engine hood is provided at a portion of the engine hood which is located between said move mechanism and said striker in a vehicle longitudinal direction, and said move-amount adjusting portion allows a rotation of the engine hood when the engine hood rotates around the rear end portion of the engine hood, and restricts an excessive move of the engine hood when the engine hood is moved upwardly and rearwardly.