The new 2015 Mondeo will be the Ford car to own to engage in people watching — quite literally. The European vehicle will use radar and cameras to scan the road and sidewalks ahead to look for pedestrians in the vehicle’s path or about to enter it. If it spots one, it will notify the driver and can even apply the brakes if he or she fails to act on it.

The pedestrian detection system, which Ford first previewed last year, is part of a new Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS) that the automaker is sticking in new [company]Ford[/company] and Lincoln vehicles, starting with Mondeo in Europe later this year. The idea is to develop a suite of technologies that partially automate the process of driving in both everyday and emergency situations, while still leaving the driver in firm control of the car. That’s a philosophy that dictates Ford’s…