Damian James’ Blog: 14 July 2008

Car makers lack safety knowledge

According to the latest e-call newsletter that I have just received this project is gathering pace, with the European Parliament recently voting overwhelmingly in favour of starting a full scale roll out from 2010.

Over 97% of members voted in favour of the project following the debate on a paper of the potential benefits. The paper also discussed the introduction as standard of electronic stability control from 2012 on all new vehicles.

This vote is an extremely important step towards the introduction of e-call in new vehicles.

However, seeing as the UK has not yet signed the memorandum of understanding we are now in a minority of European states and as Viviane Reding, European Commissioner for the Information Society and the Media says: “We cannot wait any longer: lives are at stake here”.

The UK does appear to be lagging behind the rest of Europe on e-call and I haven’t been able to find out why, as yet – watch this space!

The other area I am deeply concerned with is the apparent lack of communication with the vehicle manufacturers. In my role I have the opportunity to speak to a wide variety of manufacturers and everyone I quiz has either never heard of e-call or is unaware of any specific timeframe for implementation.

I assume that some level of communication and progress is being made at a more strategic level but seeing as we are now less than 18 months away from 2010 publicity of these efforts and possible successes is non existent.

Seeing as this technology will be one of the biggest advances in reducing road deaths (estimated to save around 2500 deaths per annum in Europe) and serious injuries since the standardisation of ABS I still find it shocking that so little is heard on the subject.

In the same newsletter there is also a link to the new website for the pan European emergency contact number 112 which will be the platform for e-call’s deployment. I think it is unlikely that 112 will replace our own 999 emergency telephone number but how many residents of the UK are aware of 112 and its important future role for life saving applications?