Imagine a time when you will be hearing of no road accidents. Imagine how sweet life will be like (at least to the regular citizens, not insurance companies) when you will neither see nor hear news on road carnage on our African roads! Unfortunately, this will remain a fantasy unless all the stakeholders take action to improve the safety of roads in Africa. At least the situation could improve if ICT is used to track and prevent accidents from happening. Keep reading to unravel the contributions of ICT in improving road safety.
Courting death is the only appropriate description for this
Image source: vieques-island.blogspot.com
Avoid ICT related distractions while driving
Many a times, road safety has been compromised whenever drivers use communication gadgets while driving. Many accidents can be traced to drivers calling on their cell phones, setting navigation systems and/or texting while driving. Many people have lost their precious lives due to such careless driving. Wouldn’t such incidences have been avoided if drivers desisted from texting or calling on their phones while driving? Of course, yes. Distractions should be avoided to save life!
Staying away from such communication technology can extensively improve the road safety situation in Africa. However, there are other innovative ways of embracing ICT in avoiding impending road accidents.
Use LTE networks
Imagine how many accidents can be avoided on the African roads if vehicles were able to “communicate with each another”. Picture a driver reading an impending accident signal from another vehicle in front of it and taking appropriate and immediate action to avoid collusion! The LTE network, therefore allows such powerful car-to-car communication. The network provides a high-speed bandwidth that enables transfer of a signal on an impending accident. The driver can read the signal on the communication gadget installed in that car. Such signal transmission would prevent many deaths.
Car-to-car infrastructure is one of the innovative ways that Erickson has adopted in conjunction with Government of Germany and other auto industry players. It is a project dubbed cooperative cars. Why don’t we adopt it in Africa as well in a bid to improve road safety?
Apart from detecting impending accidents, the system is powerful enough to enable communication with other drivers plying the same route. With such communication, the drivers have the discretion to avoid the often-congested routes due to accidents or traffic squalls in the peak hours.
Installation of eCell
More often than not, many lives are lost due to prolonged time that passes between being involved in an accident and reporting and rescue of the accident victims. This can be avoided if drivers can embrace the installation of the eCell system. This system initiates an automatic emergency call to the concerned department if the vehicle is involved in an accident. The system therefore allows for ease of identification of the accident scene and thus dispatch the help needed. You can imagine how road safety can be improved with such responses. If these interceptions have worked in the European Union, Africa can adopt the system as well.
A car fitted with eCell system
Image source: www.emercedesbenz.com
