According to statistics on traffic accidents in Japan, approximately 60% of four-wheel vehicles involved in pedestrian accidents are passenger cars, 70% of the pedestrians involved are struck by the front of the vehicle, and 50% of the fatalities are persons 65 or more years of age. The proportion of elderly persons to the total number of pedestrian fatalities is expected to continue to increase, due to the rapid increase of the population in this age group, and further the total number of pedestrian fatalities is increasing. The findings from in-depth case studies of 113 pedestrian casualties show that the severity and location of the impact on the pedestrian depend upon the body size of the pedestrian and the shape of the front of the car, and important areas of a car from the view point of pedestrian protection are the bumper, the hood edge and the hood top. In order to understand the pedestrian kinematics involved in a collision between a car and pedestrian, and to obtain primary data for considering sub-system test methods for pedestrian protection, parametric studies were conducted with the use of full-scale sled tests and computer simulations, by varying the shape and stiffness of the front of the car and the body size of the pedestrian on the basis of accident analyses. The results show that the shape of the front of the car. particularly the hood edge height, greatly influences the pedestrian kinematics after the impact. The influence of the force-deformation characteristics of the front of the car upon the pedestrian kinematics appears to be small, compared to the dependence on the shape of the front of the car. The pedestrian kinematics varies according to the body size of the pedestrian, and is strongly influenced by the offset of the center of gravity of the pedestrian relative to the hood edge. The variations in head impact velocity and the angle thereof at the hood top,in impact angle at the hood edge, and in effective mass at the primary impact points are discussed with respect to the requirement for sub-system test conditions.