MEPs at Strasbourg’s European Parliament have voted in favour of mandating that emergency call devices be fitted to new cars sold in the EU from October 2015.
The proposed eCall system automatically alerts rescue services to car crashes.
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Road accidents across the EU caused 28,000 deaths and left 1.5m injured in 2012.
“The deployment of a public EU-wide emergency call system represents a very important achievement for the safety of European road users. About 2500 lives could be saved every year in Europe as well as the severity of injuries could be considerably reduced in tens of thousands of cases. The eCall will be free of charge, for the benefit of any driver in Europe independently of the car he or she drives,” said the rapporteur, Olga Sehnalova.
The in-vehicle eCall system uses emergency call number 112 technology to alert the emergency services automatically to serious road accidents. It indicates the exact location and helps them arrive faster, save lives, reduce the severity of injuries and cut the cost of traffic jams.
The draft rules set October 2015 as the final date for manufacturers to be ready to install eCall devices in new models of cars and light vans. However, to meet the industry’s request for more time to develop and test the system, MEPs left open the possibility of postponing this deadline.
Transmitting relevant data for rescue operations, but no tracking
MEPs strengthened a data-protection clause in the draft law to ensure that eCall-equipped vehicles are not subject to constant tracking When an accident triggers an eCall, the data sent automatically to emergency centres should be restricted to the type of activation, the class of vehicle, the type of fuel used, the time of the accident, the exact location of the vehicle, the direction of travel and the number of seatbelts fastened, says Parliament’s amendment.
Rescue call free of charge
European Commission estimates show that eCall devices could cost around EUR100 each when installed in all vehicles. MEPs add that the eCall is a public service which uses the 112 number and should therefore be free of charge for users.
