From Crispin Piney
I was interested to read about the proposal to put automatic transmission of crash information into cars (17 January, p 22). But rather than requiring the E-merge software on board the car to issue its message in several local languages, it would surely be much simpler and more robust to define a set of numerical codes. These could be translated at the point of arrival, which already knows what language it needs. Then the only country-dependent information within the car would be the list of phone numbers to call. These numbers are already being standardised, and the numeric service could easily be extended to new language areas.
An automated “handshake” could also be added in order to guard against malicious false alarms, for example by having the emergency service system call the car back for confirmation.
Valbonne, France
