German automotive industry improves information for rescue services
Quicker help at accidents – VDA enhances safety
Frankfurt am Main, 20 March 2009. In an emergency seconds can count. In serious car accidents in particular, the rescue services generally have little time to free injured persons from the vehicle. They therefore need to have comprehensive information about the car as quickly as possible: where are the batteries, where are the airbags and where can the vehicle be cut open fast and safely? The German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA) now offers the answers at a glance: a data sheet drawn up jointly by the manufacturers will provide the rescue services with the most important information about each current vehicle model.
"The new standardized data sheets are another step toward optimization of general road safety," said VDA Managing Director Dr. Thomas Schlick when the sheets were presented. "Because they save valuable orientation time, the sheets make it possible to carry out the rescue work swiftly and in a targeted manner." He added that this initiative demonstrated once again the great commitment of the German automotive industry to vehicle safety. "Our manufacturers think beyond vehicle construction right as far as the end of the rescue chain," Dr. Schlick declared.
The standards for the data sheet were developed in close cooperation with the German Fire Protection Association (GFPA), which represents the views of the German rescue services on behalf of the Committee "Fire Brigade Matters, Disaster Protection and Civil Defence" of the conference of German interior ministers. "At the same time the GFPA is working on standard national guidelines for appropriate rescue practices and techniques for saving people from vehicles involved in accidents, to be published in the summer of 2009," stressed Dieter Trepesch, head of fire protection in Munich.
The continual improvement of vehicle safety has always been a key objective for the German automotive industry. Over past decades the manufacturers and suppliers have been working in close cooperation to develop live-saving safety equipment, establishing themselves as technological leaders on the global market. These systems contribute greatly to making driving on German roads safer all the time. In the 1970s more than 20,000 people died in road accidents in Germany every year, but in 2008 the number was only 4,467 - even though there are twice as many cars on the roads today as there were 30 years ago.
The new standardized rescue data sheets are being compiled for all the current vehicles built by manufacturers in the VDA. They will soon be available to the rescue services as free downloads from the Internet and are suitable for mobile use in actual practice.
Further information on the rescue guidelines, which will be published on the VDA's web site this summer, will be presented at its 11th Technical Congress in Wolfsburg on 25 and 26 March 2009.
