The European Union is preparing serious changes for us. The first one will affect drivers later this year, the second, which will save lives and health, will come into force in two years.
The European Commission has decided that from October 2015, every new car sold in the European Union will have to be equipped with the eCall system.
eCall will call for help
There are two reasons. The first, official one, is related to safety and health protection. Last year, 1.5 million people were injured on European roads in accidents, and 28,000 were injured. people lost their lives. The eCall system is to contribute to the improvement of these statistics by immediately notifying the relevant services about road incidents.
In a car equipped with eCall , special sensors integrated in the airbag will themselves detect when the driver collapses or an accident occurs. Thanks to the transmission of the signal from the sensor to the transmitter, the emergency services will learn about the incident, which, thanks to the data on the vehicle's location, will be able to reach the scene of the accident in a short time.
The system will also be equipped with an alarm button. So if eCall does not work automatically, bystanders will be able to call for help at the push of a button. This can of course also be done by the driver or passenger, if their condition allows it.
Installing the system on all cars is expected to increase the price of new vehicles by an average of € 100. And it is here that the second argument for implementing the system was hidden. Thanks to the decision of the European Commission, many companies that will produce devices and adapt the ICT infrastructure will earn. The system can also be used to offer other services, such as tracking stolen cars .
The obligation to have an eCall system is to cover both passenger cars and delivery vans . Motorcycles, buses and trucks are to be included in the system at a later date.
The policemen will notify themselves
Another directive will come into force much sooner and it will cover most of the EU countries (excluding Denmark, Ireland and Great Britain). On November 7, regulations will come into force to establish national contact points that will be responsible for the flow of information on road traffic offenders.
Today, drivers who are photographed by speed cameras outside their home country often do not have to pay fines for recorded offenses. The local police usually cannot add penalty points to a foreigner's account. However, this will change already in November.
Thanks to the contact points, individual countries will inform each other about offenses committed on their territory by foreign citizens. This means that if a Polish driver, driving at excessive speed, for example on an Italian road, is photographed by a speed camera, the local police will notify the Polish police about it and they will punish the driver.
The penalty will be imposed on the driver, so it will be important to determine who was driving the photographed vehicle. In the event of a problem with the enforcement of the mandate, the case will go to a bailiff.
Contact points will help in punishing offenses such as speeding, driving without wearing seat belts, talking on the phone without a hands-free kit, or driving at a red light. In the international system, driving under the influence of alcohol or other intoxicants will also be punished.
Sometimes it is better to get lost than to ask for directions too much. Aldous Huxley
