Ireland has been urged to sign up for a new car accident alert system called eCall, designed to reduce fatalities and serious accidents on roads across Europe .
The call came from the European Commission on the day Europe's mobile phone operators signed a voluntary commitment to implement the life-saving, car accident technology.
But the scheme can only take effect once all member states have signed up to the plan, and six nations - Ireland, the UK, Denmark, France, Latvia and Malta - have yet to sign the document.
eCall works by automatically alerting the emergency services after an accident . The technology involves an onboard device that automatically dials 112 - Europe's single emergency number - and relays the exact location of the vehicle and the direction it is travelling in, using a mobile phone signal and the vehicle's GPS coordinates.
In a statement, the European Commission said its research shows eCall could save up to 2,500 lives every year in the EU, and reduce the severity of injuries by 10 to 15 per cent by halving emergency response times.
In addition, equipping all 230 million cars in the EU with eCall could save 26 billion euros in road accident costs each year.
UK And Ireland Yet To Sign Up For New Car Accident Alert System
Tue, 15 Sep 2009
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