While emergency vehicles rely on loud sirens to get the attention of cars around them, this system isn’t foolproof; sometimes a car’s radio can be on too loud, or a driver doesn’t notice that an emergency vehicle is approaching quickly behind them.
Tim Newman, founder of Brakers Early Warning Systems, explained how his product could combat these issues on last night’s episode of The Disruptors. The B.R.A.K.E.R.S. platform works by allowing emergency vehicles to broadcast messages to car radios within a certain geographic area, and tell them whether they need to move.
“The driver will hear the message over the radio, and has the opportunity to react before the emergency vehicle is on site,” Newman said. The idea is to reduce the probability of collisions and the door-to-door response time of emergency vehicles. and Brakers is currently working with the Belleville police and fire departments.
“What’s risky about this is that they are coming during a time when it’s still undecided whether this software is going to be built into the car, o if they have an opportunity to license their technology to each of the automakers,” Disruptors co-host Amber Kanwar said.
Co-host Bruce Croxon said that while he wasn’t sure if he would back them, he was excited by Brakers’ role in the connected car revolution. “This is the first app I’ve heard that is solving a problem here—we’ve all seen people getting run off the road and not getting out of the way of the fire truck in time,” Croxon said. “And here it is, coming on my dashboard.”
BetaKit is a production partner on The Disruptors. Tune in to BNN every Thursday night at 7pm for full episodes!