Cars In The Future : Helping The Emergency Services
Return to Cars In The FutureA future e-Safety concept looks at what role the vehicle and its technology can play post crash to reduce the number of deaths on the road, the first positive involvement that vehicle technology will play in tertiary safety.
Before, during, and after the crash, information is recorded using technology within the vehicle. Systems such as in car-cameras, biomedical sensors, and radar and camera units equipped the exterior of the vehicle would all record information which could be used by the emergency services. This data would be stored aboard a black box, and is a positive argument for them to be fitted to vehicles in future.
If information about the crash and nature of injuries sustained can be fed back quickly to the emergency services pre-arrival at the scene of the crash, then it is likely that the consequences of the injuries suffered can be reduced.
The first way that a system will prove to be a boon is by automatically contacting the emergency services post crash, alerting them in a quicker time frame than current ad hoc methods.
This could be especially useful in cases where there are multiple occupants in the vehicle and would give the emergency services quantifiable information about which occupants are in greater need of medical attention.
Emergency services could be informed of the make and model of vehicles before arriving at the scene of a collision. If they also had access to a database of a vehicles safety features, and best methods of extracting an occupant (which differs between vehicle and accident depending on which airbags have deployed and high strength structural reinforcement – such as boron rods) then the speed at which emergency services could assess the scene would be improved.
It is high priority that the cataloguing of safety technologies on different vehicles for the use of emergency services should take place.
The system would also raise the possibility of creating a verbal link between the emergency services and the occupants of the crashed vehicle, creating an earlier interaction between the vehicle occupants and the emergency services that could be a useful way of delivering primary first aid, or at least psychological support.
|
RoSPA is a registered charity: Registered Charity No: 207823 Patron: Her Majesty the Queen RoSPA Head Office: Edgbaston Park, 353 Bristol Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham B5 7ST, UK |
 |