GPS data for improving pedestrian protection

A pedestrian protection system (12) from a vehicle (10) utilizes GPS data to reduce the number of false positive detections for impacting an object (28) determined to be a pedestrian. The GPS data is used to focus on an area of increased and/or decreased pedestrian presence to alter a reaction threshold (RT) for the vehicle (10). Additionally, the GPS data can be used for more accurate analysis of the likelihood of an impact.