The Price of Safety

People often compare the safety elements of the aviation industry to the automotive industry. Few realize how divergent the cultures of these two industries actually are. The automotive industry talks a good game regarding safety, but the aviation industry actually delivers. While 1.2M people die on highways around the world every year, less than 600 people die in airplane crashes.

“As context, I spent 14 years at Airbus, and I don’t know the cost of any part of the plane,” Alexandre Corjon, senior vice president and technical fellow at Sonatus told the International Telecommunications Union’s AI4Good audience in Geneva just a couple weeks ago.  “My first day at Renault, I was expected to know the cost of the rearview camera.”

With that single statement, Corjon summed up a core difference between the automotive and aviation industries.  Car makers are obsessed with cost.  Aircraft makers (and airlines) are obsessed with safety.  Of course, this carries over into training where the designers of the planes participate in the preparation of the pilots.  There is no parallel in the automotive industry.

This contrast reared its head as I was visiting APCO 2025 in Baltimore this week.  APCO International describes itself as “the premier event for public safety communications officials, from frontline telecommunicators to comm center managers to public safety communications equipment and services vendors.”

The automotive industry represents just one corner of this vital industry.  Public safety also encompasses law enforcement, natural disaster response, firefighting, and healthcare.  Unfortunately, the automotive sector remains something of a blind spot and a funding wasteland - including 9-1-1 services.

The so-called Big Beautiful Bill, recently passed by Congress, had originally provided for wireless spectrum auctions the proceeds of which were at least partially intended to be directed to fund Next Generation 9-1-1 technology “to replace outdated emergency communications infrastructure across the country,” in the words of a letter of support sent to the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee from a coalition of first responder organizations including:

•  APCO International

• iCERT- Industry Council for Emergency Response Technologies

• NASNA-National Association of State 911 Administrators

• NENA: The 9-1-1 Association

These organizations described current 9-1-1 systems as decades old and at risk of the kind of failures that have recently plagued air traffic controllers overseen by the Federal Aviation Administration.  Unfortunately, the pleas of these organizations were ignored.  The spectrum auctions in the BBB will proceed, but the proceeds will not fund 9-1-1 infrastructure upgrades.

The world of first responders relevant to the automotive industry is already struggling to contend with 100 daily highway fatalities in the U.S. and the thousands of crashes causing them.  Despite the best efforts and intentions of public and private entities, service providers, innovators, startups, car makers, and first responders, the carnage continues.

Safety innovation in the automotive sector is extraordinary.  Not a day goes by without a report of new advances in advanced driver assistance systems and autonomous vehicle technology.  Sadly, little or no such innovation is occurring or being acknowledged or supported in crash response - next generation 9-1-1.

The reality is that crash response innovation is viewed by many outside the space as a sort of dead end.  No one wants to talk about it. People tend to think there’s no money in it.  It’s not sexy.  No one believes they will ever be in a crash – and if they ever are they believe they will be able to call for help with their smartphone.  (Never mind that this assumes the smartphone will be available and functioning and the “victim” will be conscious – big assumptions.)

There is both money and opportunity in crash response and emerging technologies are showing the way forward. There are immediate problems that need to be solved and most revolve around the speed of the emergency response.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s National 9-1-1 Program Coordinator Brian Tegtmeyer has repeatedly pointed out at multiple panel discussions and speaking engagements that in a typical year, 40% of individuals found at crash scenes in the U.S. were alive at the initial point of response but later died. Data like that speaks to the need for infrastructure enhancements, innovation, and reductions in response times.  There are clear opportunities for improvement, but no funding (with the possible exception of the U.S. DOT's SS4A Post-Crash Care Grant Program).

This is what made APCO such an interesting event.  There is innovation occurring throughout the APCO eco-system from enhanced wireless communications – benefiting from the rapid adoption of satellite technology and the need to overcome the shortcomings of multiple RF solutions currently in use across emergency response agencies and applications (check out Skymira or Pelsue) – to drones, artificial intelligence, and cameras.

Automotive crash response languishes despite the reality of a daily holocaust of highway fatalities that appears to have numbed the public, regulators, and car makers alike.  There is one exception, represented by a tiny exhibit at APCO, and that is Flock Safety.

Flock Safety has made a name for itself and built a massive valuation around its license-plate-reading cameras – mounted on fixed infrastructure.  Having installed hundreds of thousands of these cameras, Flock Safety was able to raise $275M earlier this year contributing to a valuation that now stands at $7B.

While the company continues to build upon its existing relationships with 5,000 law enforcement agencies nationwide, it has recently expanded into and is helping to define a category described as drone first response (DFR).  Agencies are lining up to explore and adopt the new technology with the goal of preventing and responding to criminal activity.

Drones have been proposed and tested for use in car crash response.  This concept has been pioneered by Roadmedic which has proposed integrating DFR technology in its 9-1-1 chip solution intended for deployment in 2027 model year vehicles.

Flock Safety executives are quick to note that current DFR deployments are focused on responding to felony criminal activity, but are also suitable for adding situational awareness in the event of fires or natural disasters as well as car crashes.  In spite of that seeming low priority at present, the introduction of DFR for car crash response might simultaneously improve response times and funding prospects.

The other side of drone deployment is the dashboarding of command centers where emergency response personnel are coordinating first response activities.  At APCO, Motorola Solutions displayed a drone from Nokia along with its command center software systems designed to integrate video and data feeds from police body-worn cameras, traffic cameras, drones, and other sources.

A more traditional yet advanced crash response solution shown at APCO, and a rare example of a car maker stepping up to the challenge, was a collaboration between Intrado, AT&T, and Toyota to deliver advanced automatic crash notification (AACN) data using AT&T’s EISnet in parallel with connecting a 9-1-1 voice call after a crash.  The solution – available in select model year 2026 Toyota and Lexus vehicles - is a harbinger of a wider deployment of next generation 9-1-1 direct data communications from crash scenes to public service access points.

Flock Safety and Motorola (along with Brinc, Skydio, and DroneSense) stand out for redefining public safety and emergency response.  Money is clearly flowing to drone- and camera-based systems intended to enhance response timeliness and situational awareness.  It is only a matter of time before car crash response innovation benefits from these adjacent investments. 

With 100 people dying every day on U.S. highways and 9-1-1 systems hanging by a thread, any sign of hope is welcome.  A better coordinated effort with appropriate Federal funding is necessary to make a more immediate impact.  Companies like Flock Safety, Roadmedic, and Motorola Solutions are showing the way forward.