Revolutionary H.E.L.P. Vehicle Hazard Lighting Solution Makes Disabled Cars More Visible

HOUSTON, Nov. 11, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — Emergency Safety Systems, Inc. (ESS) – an automotive safety company established in 2018 – has launched a revolutionary new automotive safety lighting solution, called the Hazard Enhanced Lighting Package (H.E.L.P.), that significantly increases the visibility of disabled or stopped cars on the roadside.

Designed specifically to better protect occupants of disabled vehicles and Good Samaritans who assist them, H.E.L.P. uses highly visible, faster hazard light flash patterns to provide instant, greatly-enhanced visibility of stationary, disabled vehicles – giving oncoming drivers more advance notice of potential threats on or near the roadway.

“Passenger vehicles on the road today are equipped with antiquated hazard lighting systems designed to safety standards that haven’t been updated since they were established nearly 70 years ago,” said David Tucker, co-founder and chief executive officer of ESS. “Our H.E.L.P. solution revolutionizes today’s outdated vehicle hazard lighting by transforming it into an intelligent safety communication system that provides both a visual and digital solution to dramatically increase the conspicuity of stationary vehicles. Best of all, implementation of H.E.L.P. requires only minor modifications to most vehicles’ existing safety and lighting systems.”

A recent study by Impact Research shows nearly 72,000 people in the U.S. each year – one every seven minutes – are involved in a crash involving a disabled vehicle, resulting in nearly 15,000 annual injuries or deaths. The study also revealed incidents like this are increasing in frequency at an alarming rate.

The H.E.L.P. system uses faster emergency mode flash rates combined with smart intelligence, along with emergency activation features that deploy automatically upon collision or other trigger events, such as a tire blowout or engine failure. The system can also be manually activated when the vehicle is stationary.

To bring H.E.L.P to market, ESS is working with U.S. government regulators as well as people who have suffered through the often-tragic consequences of disabled vehicle crashes.

Chris Smith – a current NFL player with the Las Vegas Raiders who experienced this first-hand when his girlfriend, Petara Cordero, was fatally struck by an oncoming vehicle in a roadside incident – has partnered with ESS to help increase awareness of the problem.

Smith and Cordero were in a crash while traveling along an expressway in Ohio the evening of Sept. 11, 2019 when Smith’s vehicle blew a tire and hit a guardrail. While the vehicle protected both occupants in the initial crash, Smith and Cordero activated their hazard lights, got out of the car, and were standing next to their SUV awaiting help when Cordero was fatally struck by an oncoming vehicle. Smith is working with ESS to advocate for H.E.L.P. to be implemented into all new passenger vehicles so he can spare others from the pain and loss he has experienced following Cordero’s death.

“The team at ESS is passionate about reducing the number of preventable tragedies like Chris’, which unfortunately happen on our roadways every day,” continued Tucker. “H.E.L.P. is an easy and low-cost solution that will help prevent thousands of injuries and hundreds of lives every year.”

H.E.L.P. is a software-based solution, making updates to the lighting control system relatively simple and inexpensive for automakers.

ESS is also working with communications technology and traffic data partners to develop solutions that provide oncoming motorists with advance digital notification of these emergencies through their mobile phones and vehicle GPS systems to supplement the visual communication provided when H.E.L.P. is activated. 

About ESS
ESS (Emergency Safety Solutions, Inc.), creator of the H.E.L.P. (Hazard Enhanced Lighting Package) solution, is focused on saving lives by helping to eliminate hundreds of thousands of preventable accidents globally involving vehicles that are in an emergency, disabled or stopped on the side of the road. H.E.L.P. protects occupants of disabled vehicles and good Samaritans who assist them – providing more advance warning to drivers of potential threats on or near the roadway. ESS was certified as a national minority supplier by the National Minority Supplier Development Council in October, 2020.