According to a video published by the official news provider, every year, 70 ambulance accidents occur in Hungary. This not including accidents involving vehicles using other emergency signs, but roughly 150 accidents involving vehicles using lights and sound signals. In the majority of cases, it is the drivers of casual vehicles who are at fault.
What is the reason?
Do you know the situation, when you hear the emergency siren, but you see nowhere?
Here are some casual reasons, which can cause problems:
- listening too loud music
- can’t see the emergency lights, because of the sunshine or larger vehicle
- can’t see and/or hear the approaching of the emergency vehicle (EV) in an intersection
If we compare the number of ambulances in use in Hungary (910) with the number of ambulance accidents (70). The result is 7%. This means, that every year approx. 7% of the ambulances in Hungary are crashed in an accident!
This information is in themselves revealing, but they are “only” accidents, and don’t include the number of vehicle obstruction, which are almost impossible to determine, but can cause significant problems. It should also be remembered that it is not only those directly involved in the accident that need to be taken into account, but also the lives and health of many people who may be affected indirectly by such accidents/obstructions.
Where the approach of an emergency vehicle is not detected, can lead to very dangerous traffic situations. Even if it does not result in an accident, the EV loses valuable seconds due to the inattention of road users.
Huge problem all around the world
In 2021, 198 people died in crashes involving emergency vehicles according to the Injury Facts.
Emergency vehicles are travelling at higher speeds to reach accidents and crisis cases in time. This can lead to dangerous situations.
Numbers from the USA:
- There are an estimated 6,500 accidents involving ambulances each year in the US.
- 35% of crashes resulted in injury or fatality to at least 1 occupant of a vehicle involved. This means 2275 injury or fatality accidents in the US.
- Over that 2000-2009, there were roughly 31,600 accidents involving fire vehicles.
These accidents can be happened any kind of emergency vehicles.
What is the solution?
How can we reduce the number of the emergency vehicle accidents? Unfortunatelly there isn’t only one thing what could solve the whole problem. Sure that the development of the vehicle communication will have a main role in the solution of this problem.
The vehicle communication technology offers plenty of opportunity to make solutions and solve the presented problem and to improve the road safety. The Engicommy’s team working in the vehicle communication area. They develop products and systems which can improve the road safety. It has a prototype product, which offer solution to reduce the emergency vehicle accidents.
A system, which can alert other drivers, inside the car, that the EV approaching.
