The Greene County Sheriff's Office this week showed off new technology it believes will save lives.
Each of the office’s approximately 100 patrol vehicles are now outfitted with the HAAS alert system, which communicates with the Whelen Engineering system that operates the emergency sirens and lights.
"So what does it do? One of the capabilities of this system is the responder to responder alert system," said Greene County Sheriff Jim Arnott. "So when we have multiple emergency vehicles responding to the same incident, sometimes you get vehicles that are intersecting each other at high rates of speed. This system automatically notifies the other emergency responder that they're approaching another emergency vehicle to warn them of a potential collision."
Arnott hopes to avoid accidents like one in 2007 where Greene County Deputy Gary McCormick died after colliding with a firefighter responding to the same accident to which he was responding.
The HAAS system also alerts the public that they’re coming up on an emergency vehicle or that one is approaching.
"As you know, there's a lot of accidents involving deputies or law enforcement, tow truck operators, emergency responders, roadside because people are having inattention when they come to driving," said Arnott.
The alert pops up on a vehicle’s dashboard screen. There’s also an audio warning in patrol cars. It’s only available to the public in Stellantis vehicles, including 2018 or newer Dodge, Jeep and Chrysler models. Navigation apps such as Waze and Apple Maps also provide alerts through HAAS.
Arnott hopes other law enforcement agencies will install the equipment as well.
