Automatically deployable vehicle safety guard

A vehicle comprising:

• a body having a front end portion and a side panel portion;
• a pair of front steerable wheels spaced in a transverse direction of the body of the vehicle;
• at least one pair of transversely spaced rear wheels which are longitudinally spaced from the front steerable wheels;
• a door provided along the side panel portion;
• a safety guard extending along the side panel portion for engaging animate and inanimate objects in order to prevent the objects from going under the vehicle, said safety guard being normally maintained in a raised, retracted position during operation of the vehicle and configured to be shifted to a lowered, deployed position in establishing a physical barrier which is spaced from a road surface a distance which prevents animate objects from entering under the vehicle;
• a detection system including a plurality of sensors configured to sense for a potentially dangerous situation, which could result in an animate object going under the vehicle;
• and
• a controller configured to cause automatic repositioning of the safety guard from the raised, retracted position to the lowered, deployed position in a preemptive manner based on signals received from the detection system.