From a physics perspective, yes it does. Not much, but yes it does do something.
In order for a crumple zone to work, the material must be at least slightly softer than the rest of the structure. When you have a collision, both the strong structure and the relatively weak crumple zones will flex, but the crumple zones will flex more. In a big collision, like with another car, they might flex so much they have permanent damage (the crumple), but even with a pedestrian they will flex a little. The more they flex, the more it cushions the impact for both the pedestrian and the occupants of the car.
As I said, the amount of cushion for the two parties is massively skewed in favor of the car, and crumple zones alone are not anywhere near enough to make cars safe for pedestrians. But objectively, yes they do slightly cushion the impact for a pedestrian, and in the perfect edge case collision it might mean the difference between life and death.
According to that article, this only covers donations to other organizations who then distribute the donated food. It doesn’t cover anyone directly donating food to individuals.
So for a restaurant, they would need to donate food to a food bank or something, and that would mean food that isn’t immediately going bad. And if that’s the case they’re probably just going to keep it and try to use it later. If they want to donate the leftover food at the end of the day they can’t use anymore, there probably isn’t any time left other than to just give it to some homeless people outside the restaurant, which this act doesn’t protect against.
Which then just raises the question for me, why isn’t this also protected against? The act already states that the food has to be seemingly good condition, so you can’t just serve mold and say it was a gift. What’s the harm in feeding homeless people?