Emergency technology, eCall, is already well established and often comes as part of an infotainment package on new cars. This system uses the connection to your mobile phone and automatically calls the emergency services if your car is in an accident, and you are incapacitated. It can transmit such details as the location of the vehicle, the severity of the crash and the number of occupants on board to any attending ambulance or fire brigade, speeding up response times and potentially saving hundreds of lives.
While it is an option now, such systems will become mandatory on all new cars from March 2018, thanks to new legislation voted on by the European Parliament. The European Parliament's negotiator and S&D Euro MP (S&D is a loose grouping of so-called Social and Democrat Euro MPs), Olga Sehnalova said: "The reduction of the number of deaths on European roads has always been a priority for the European Parliament, being mentioned on several occasions in many resolutions. Today's vote will help the EU meet this objective. The quicker response from the emergency services to accidents on roads across Europe could save about 2,500 lives in the EU every year. The severity of injuries will also be considerably reduced in tens of thousands of cases.
"We ensured that the vehicles equipped with 112 public eCall are not traceable and are not subject to constant tracking. In fact, the device will upgrade the data constantly and keep the minimum information required to handle the emergency calls."
S&D Group spokeswoman for the Internal Market and Consumer Protection, Evelyne Gebhardt added "The S&D Group were the leading force in ensuring an EU-wide public eCall service based on the 112 emergency number, available free of charge to everyone. This represents a very important and concrete achievement for the safety of EU citizens."