Danger from breakdown vehicles: New technology warns of broken-down cars
Created: 10/16/2022, 1:00 p.m
By: Sebastian Oppenheimer
If a defective vehicle remains on the side of the road, there is a risk of a rear-end collision - a new technology is now intended to warn the traffic.
A vehicle breakdown is always annoying - but there are situations in which it can be extremely dangerous for the vehicle occupants.
If a car breaks down on the edge of a busy motorway, there is a risk that another vehicle will collide – at high speeds such a crash can have fatal consequences.
The company Emergency Safety Solutions (ESS), based in Houston in the US state of Texas, has now developed a technology that is intended to prevent accidents with broken-down vehicles - and has found a first major partner in the electric car manufacturer Tesla.
Danger from breakdown vehicles: New technology warns of broken-down cars
The name of the new technology: HELP - an abbreviation for Hazard Enhanced Location Protocol, which roughly translates as "improved method for locating danger spots".
In principle, the technology consists of two parts: On the one hand, the frequency of the hazard warning lights is increased - which is intended to warn other road users much more effectively than "normal" hazard warning lights, which, according to the ESS, have been working unchanged in their current form since 1951.
In general, more and more driver assistance systems are improving the safety of vehicles - numerous new helpers have been mandatory since this year.
Vehicles left lying on the side of the road are a great danger - a new technology is intended to warn the traffic.
(Iconic image) © vmd-images/Imago
HELP warning system: New technology consists of two components
The second part of the HELP system is a digital warning: the defective vehicle sends a signal to the cloud, from where in turn a corresponding warning message is sent to the navigation displays (on which supermarket advertising could soon be seen in Germany ) of all approaching vehicles is sent.
In this way, other drivers may know what to expect minutes before they reach the danger spot.
Warning lights in the car and what they mean
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As ESS has now announced in a statement, Tesla will be the first major partner in the automotive industry to use HELP technology.
The necessary software will be made available in the vehicles by means of an update – but initially only in North America.
