Cathy Bernstein, 57 was arrested in Port St. Lucie, Florida after her car was suspected to be involved in a hit and run with two vehicles.
Bernstein managed to escape after two collisions, but her smart Ford car captured the collisions and automatically alerted 911, which manages the rapid response emergency services. Her Ford car hit a truck before smashing into a van on Prima Vista Boulevard.
The alert message included the correct date and time of the collision in addition to car model and GPS coordinates and turned out to be a crucial piece of evidence.
Ford makes use of sensors and Internet connectivity to establish contact with 911 in the case of any emergencies. The Ford’s SYNC’s Emergency Assistance portal is programmed in such a way that a direct call to emergency services will be initiated when a series of event occurs. The same safety technique is adopted by other popular car manufacturers such as BMW.
Bernstein denied any involvement in the case when 911 contacted her directly. Moreover, she deliberately told the officer that she will not leave the accident scene if at all there was any problem.
However, 911 officials trapped her with strong evidence by producing visual images of the collision, exact time, vehicle model number including registration details and correct location.
Bernstein was arrested and taken to a hospital for medical check-up. According to reports coming in, officials reportedly cooled her heels in a Jail cell. Anna Preston, a victim of the hit-and-run incident, was also treated at the same hospital.
The European Union has framed strict guidelines to make sure that all vehicles will be equipped with this kind of emergency response technology by 2018.
This unique safety mechanism if implemented globally is expected to save several precious lives per year and also brings errant drivers from escaping from the clutches of the law.
There are people who are against the implementation of this technology since they are concerned about the fact that Government might misuse it to keep track of the vehicle movement.
However, official denied all such rumours and confirmed that this mechanism is used only in the event of a collision, and the data will be deleted once the case is settled.
We wish this kind of safety mechanism should be there in Indian cars as well since many hit-and-run cases remained either unsolved or takes ages for the court to hear the case and deliver the verdict.
We are aware of how the former union minister Gopinath Munde was killed in a similar incident and CBI was still unable to crack the case.
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