OnStar Develops Technology to Predict Crash Severity
By Chet Huber
President, OnStar
It’s a situation that’s difficult to imagine.
You or someone you love is severely injured following a crash, unable to call for help, knowing that the chance for survival can begin to drop as every precious minute ticks by.
At OnStar, we’re thinking about this scenario every day, and working on ways to help our subscribers survive this real-life situation. Back in 2003, we announced Automatic Crash Response – a technology that automatically alerts OnStar following a crash. This technology allows an OnStar Advisor to receive real-time crash data using built-in vehicle sensors and to send first responders to the vehicle’s exact GPS location right away. To date, we’ve responded to and assisted with more than 110,000 Automatic Crash Response incidents and I’m very proud of the impact this service has made in helping to save countless lives.
ACR creates a digital crash signature that includes detailed information such as crash severity, direction of impact and airbag deployment – valuable data for the first responder and emergency medical communities. In 2007, the CDC convened an expert panel of more than 20 of the nation’s leading emergency medical physicians, public safety and vehicle safety experts to review this real-time crash data to determine how it can be used to further improve the emergency transport and treatment of crash victims. You can read more about the report here.
Thanks to the findings of this panel, OnStar was able to develop an important new tool to assist emergency responders in anticipating the seriousness of a crash. This new technology called Injury Severity Prediction will utilize our data to automatically predict if a crash is likely to have caused severe injury to passengers. Each crash will be given an Injury Severity Prediction of either “normal” or “high,” helping first responders better determine what level of care is required and what medical facility is most appropriate for transport. As we learned from the medical experts on the CDC panel, seconds are precious following a traumatic injury and complications can result from the delayed treatment of injuries. With this new tool, we’re hoping that when a medical professional responds to a crash scene, we’ve equipped them with information that can help them be better prepared to treat crash victims and, ultimately, save more lives.
We’re planning to continue to work with the first responder communities to teach them about this new tool, and are planning to make it available to all our OnStar advisors by early next year. It will be available on all vehicles equipped with OnStar’s ACR technology – more than 7 million to date.
I look forward to reading your thoughts on this new tool and answering any questions you may have about our services.
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What will happen to OnStar if GM declares bankruptcy?
OnStar seems to be a rare GM success story. Are you thinking of separating from the mother company and selling OnStar subscriptions to the buyers of other brands and used cars?
Onstar is great, i got really impressed the web based management of the car ( the reports ). I think they have a lot room to improve to be a service provider for multiple vendors than just GM.
Specially the areas of improvement may be web based scans and diaganastics etc because last day a friend who brought new chevy was saying check engine light on and he was looking for ways to know it avoiding a travel to dealer ( it came on multiple time and went off also same way )
Second question is on the map integration etc. The industry goes with new players like google etc,why Onstar is not doing a vendor neutral way and publish map apis etc so maplets etc can be developed over it.
Again me too have the first question Mongo asked
Is onstar a good asset or a bad asset ?
General Motors should take seriously the threats posed by faulty Active Handling components installed on the Corvette C6. I am currently collecting video, forensic data, witness statements and dealer testimony about the safety and potential hazardous risks of a design flaw in the 2005+ Chevrolet Corvette. If you are unaware of the flaw please do a simple search online for keywords “Corvette” and “service active handling”. You’ll quickly sort through hundred of near fatal failures of GM components in the Chevrolet Corvette.
This report will be transmitted directly to the office of the President, members of Congress, National Highway Transportation Safety Association (NHTSA), Secretary of Transportation, automotive task force, and to General Motors expressing an eminent cause for concern of faulty equipment on the 2005+ Corvette C6 and a failure to address this concern.
To date the only attempt by General Motors to resolve any issue has been to release a Technical Service Bulletin 06-02-35-002B that does not resolve the issue. We request the TSB be reexamined to ensure further problems are resolved and future safety concerns are thwarted.
Just a suggestion…
Reporting how many was in the car, based on how many seatbelts was in use at the time of the crash.
You need to market OnStar’s capabilities to the many state and local governments who are wrestling with the problem of how to compute road taxes once people stop buying liquid fuels. They still don’t know how to figure out tax bills for those who will recharge their cars from the electrical grid.
Any updates on this issue? Will the software you have in the Volt be of use in helping municipal governments compute road taxes since the primary method now of collecting road tax is through motor fuel sales?
I find this quite interesting. I see how it can help out by knowing the severity of a crash before getting there. But how quick is the system in getting that information to the first responders. Getting that information to them in a timely manner is extremely important in a system like this. I look forward to reading more about this. I am curious about GM filing bankruptcy and how that is going to effect any kind of development on this.
ACR creates a digital crash signature that includes detailed information such as crash severity, direction of impact and airbag deployment
Does that also include the fact a lithium battery was involved in the crash in the case of the Volt?
Will a Volt equipped with OnStar be capable of sending an alert to the nearest first responder team to tell them of the severity of the accident and that a lithium battery was involved? That way they could be prepared to initiate the proper response in event of a fire or salting of the crash scene with lithium.
I’d think it’s mighty important that first responders know a lithium battery was involved in a crash. What’s the answer to Billy Joe’s question?
I’m curious to see how GM will cope as competition starts to appear in phone apps with automatic collision notification
Jsherm, what phone apps are you talking about in particular? I’m assuming you’re talking about the my911 app? They’ve got an online portal that allows pretty granular tracking of your phone as well. So pretty much where-ever you go, it’s like having sync or onstar. Still not sure if they have everything that Onstar has… I’d love to see what your thoughts are…