SOS-buttons in cars

eCall

eCall is a pan-European in-vehicle system for contacting the emergency services in the event of a road accident. If a car with eCall is involved in an accident, a message is automatically sent to the nearest emergency call centre. A voice connection is then established between the vehicle and the emergency services so that the people in the car can talk to the operator at the emergency call centre.

Information about the vehicle is also sent to the emergency call centre so that they know where exactly the accident has occurred, etc. The operators at the emergency call centre notify the relevant emergency services, as required.

eCall can also be triggered manually by pressing the SOS button in your car. An example of when you should press the SOS button is if you witness a road traffic accident.

Do not press unnecessarily

Many people press the SOS button simply to find out what it does, or because they don’t realise that they are actually placing a call to the emergency services. This results in the fire service receiving many false alarms and wastes a lot of resources on unnecessary emergency response actions.

DSB asks everyone who has an SOS button in their car to only use it in a real emergency. You should also make sure that children and other passengers know how and when to use the button.