Automatic crash notification is much from new know-how. General Motors launched OnStar within the mid-Nineteen Nineties, and since then, it’s unfold to just about each new automobile available on the market. According to Consumer Reports, 13 automakers embrace it on among the automobiles they promote right here within the U.S. at no cost, whereas seven others embrace a trial interval of not less than 5 years. But when the trial interval runs out, you both must pay for a month-to-month subscription or lose what may very well be a invaluable security function.
As Consumer Reports factors out, a 2019 research by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration discovered that automated crash notification might save not less than 700 lives a yr. And CR has been pushing for automakers to do away with subscription charges to maintain ACN lively. “Automatic crash notification can save lives. It should come standard on all new cars, and remain active—and free—regardless of what happens with subscriptions for other connected services,” William Wallace, CR’s affiliate director of security coverage, mentioned in a press release.
Others agree. Dr. Eileen Bulger, a professor of surgical procedure at University of Washington Medicine has studied ACN influence survival charges after crashes and introduced the outcomes to the NHTSA. “All cars should be required to have this feature, and nobody should pay for it,” she advised CR. “It’s a safety feature.”
Bulger pointed to 1 instance of a lady she handled whose automobile crashed down a ravine and wasn’t discovered till eight days later. “She survived because she didn’t have life-threatening injuries, but she was critically dehydrated and had significant complications associated with that,” Bulger advised CR. “Automatic crash notification would have immediately said, ‘This car is off the road, here’s where it is, here’s the exact location,’ and somebody would have gone to investigate it.”
One notable exception to automakers that cost a subscription charge to maintain ACN lively is Hyundai, which lately introduced that all 2024 fashions will include no-cost ACN as commonplace. So it’s clearly potential for all different automakers to do the identical factor. They simply haven’t performed it but. But we agree with CR. It’s previous time for automakers to cast off subscription charges and make ACN commonplace throughout the board.
Source: jalopnik.com