The incident occurred on Friday, April 7, after 9:00 p.m. – Police officers from the Traffic Division of the Municipal Police Headquarters in Legnica were dispatched to an incident on the A4 motorway, which was reported by the eCall system located in the vehicle – explains junior officer Anna Tersa from the Legnica police.
She adds:
Upon arriving at the scene, the officers noticed the driver of a Mercedes, who was trying to drive away after hitting a road sign. It turned out that the driver was a 47-year-old Turkish citizen. A strong smell of alcohol could be detected from the man. A breathalyzer test showed that he had almost 2.5‰ of alcohol in his exhaled air. The man was detained and taken to police custody.
The man was brought before the court under expedited proceedings and received a three-year ban on driving any motor vehicles, as well as a PLN 2,000 fine. The Turkish national will also have to pay PLN 5,000 to the Fund for Assistance to Victims and Post-Penitentiary Assistance. He was also ordered to pay the costs of the proceedings.
The officers say:
The primary purpose of introducing the eCall system in vehicles is to minimize fatalities resulting from road accidents, since the sooner help reaches the scene, the greater the likelihood of saving the people involved.
They add:
The eCall system can be activated in two ways:
- automatically – when the sensors located in the car are triggered, for example when the airbags deploy, as happened in this case;
- manually – when the “SOS” button is pressed by the driver or passenger.
The emergency notification system then receives key information – the location and time of the incident, the direction of travel, the type of fuel powering the vehicle, and even the number of passengers – estimated based on the fastened seat belts – and forwards it to the emergency services.