[ACN (Automatic Collision Notification)--reducing fatalities in traffic accidents by automated accident reporting]

To improve patient's outcome of seriously injured occupants after vehicle accident rescue should be performed as soon as possible. While the rescue-time-period after EMS alarming is well-defined the rescue-time-period before EMS-alarm is very variable from minutes to several hours. To reduce the rescue-time-period between accident occurrence and EMS-alarm the Automatic Collision Notification (ACN) was developed. The ACN is a new invehicle-equipment which detects a severe vehicle crash and alarms via cellular phone the EMS automatically. Simultaneously the exact accident location is transmitted (GPS). Official data of the European Community predict a 15% reduction of road traffic fatalities with ACN. Thereby the economical benefit of about 561 million [symbol: see text] could be calculated for Germany 2000.