Road crash? This device sends alert

BENGALURU: Prasad Pillai was on an overnight road trip to Kerala from Bengaluru with his family when they met with an accident. It was dark and with no one around to help, it took them hours to reach a hospital.

More than the accident, it was the lack of ready help that moved Pillai to develop a device that can call for help moments after a road crash.

Pillai along with Jayanth Jagadeesh, who together had founded Elsys Intelligent Devices in 2010, have just launched Raksha Safe Drive, a smart road safety device.



“According to the National Crime Records Bureau, there is one death due to road accidents every four minutes and there are 55 accidents every hour," said Pillai. “We've spent the past two years indigenously designing the tool to make it affordable and compatible with most cars running on Indian roads.I don't want any accident victims to undergo what I experienced."

Raksha SafeDrive can automatically detect when a vehicle is involved in a crash and alert a command centre, which the company is setting up. The device will communicate the location and an initial assessment of the crash for effective emergency service. It is also equipped with a panic button capable of location-tracking.

The device will cost Rs 6,000 and subscription for the first year is free. After that, users will be charged Rs 1,000 per year.

In case of an emergency , SafeDrive will open a communication channel at the touch of a button between the people necessary to effectively manage the situation. This may include family , friends, first responders, ambulance, hospital, police, insurance provider and roadside assistance.

Between January and September, Bengaluru witnessed 3,671 road accidents, of which more than a thousand resulted in deaths, according to the city traffic police.

Raksha SafeDrive was launched as a technology campaign on crowd-funding platform Kickstarter. “Internet and crowd-funding platforms have been globally successful in bringing out disruptive products and transforming ways of life. We hope our campaign will spark mainstream discussions and make roads safer," Jagadeesh said.

Additional Commissioner of Police (Traffic) MA Saleem lauded the usefulness of the device.“Anything that helps accident victims is welcome. Many more lives can be saved if rescue teams reach victims on time. It will help even if family members are informed," Saleem said.