Advancing Post-Crash Response Through Data, Connectivity, and Injury Severity Prediction
- Jeffrey Hannah
- 2 hours ago
- 4 min read
By the time this insight reaches ‘tomorrow’, three more children will have died in a car crash in the United States. That stark reality framed the urgency and narrative behind Saving Lives: Crash Notification, 911 & Emergency Response, a landmark session hosted by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) in Washington, DC on February 4–5, 2026.
NHTSA convened more than 69 organizations including regulators, automakers, public safety leaders, emergency responders, clinicians, technologists, legal experts, and research specialists like SBD Automotive to tackle one of the most consequential, and solvable, challenges in road safety: what happens after a crash.
SBD Automotive’s Andrew Hart and I were on site to listen, learn, and contribute our perspectives, particularly around automotive readiness for Advanced Automatic Collision Notification (AACN), the development and adoption of Injury Severity Prediction (ISP) models, and the challenge of delivering the right data to the right decision-maker at exactly the right moment.
Post-Crash Response: The Last, Best Opportunity to Save a Life
Across nine panels, one premise was universally accepted: post-crash response represents the final intervention window where fatalities can still be prevented, especially in cases involving severe trauma and blood loss.
NHTSA Administrator Jonathan Morrison struck a serious but optimistic tone. For example, AACN can help lower the 43% of crash victims who ultimately die but who were still alive at scene and pre-hospital blood transfusion can increase survival rates by 37%, but only if responders know who needs it and how urgently. Yet AACN adoption remains inconsistent, often optional, hidden behind premium subscriptions or is still poorly understood by consumers. Existing crash datasets are lagging indicators. The future, NHTSA argued, lies in responsibly leveraging telematics, behavioral data, and real-time crash dynamics to improve response outcomes. Powerful case studies reinforced the power of integration while exposing persistent fragmentation across systems, standards, and workflows.
Why Crash Data Matters Clinically
From a trauma medicine perspective, emergency response too often begins in a data vacuum. Hospitals receive patients with little insight into mechanism of injury, direction of force, or likely internal trauma - essentially a clinical “black box.”
Telematics-derived data such as delta-velocity, seatbelt usage, and impact of direction could immediately inform clinical priorities. Seconds matter: the human heart circulates several liters of blood per minute, making early intervention decisive. In rural “EMS deserts,” where response times can exceed :45 minutes, this information becomes even more critical.
A consistent message emerged that shared language and common data standards across OEMs, PSAPs, EMS, and hospitals are prerequisites for saving more lives.
Bridging Vehicles, 9-1-1, and Emergency Response
OEMs and policymakers further aligned on the need for a voluntary, non-binding common framework for AACN adoption and outcome-based ISP. Industry survey data shows strong support for shared and non-competitive approaches, including occupant-based models developed in 2021. However, validation remains constrained by limited datasets and the statistical rarity of severe injury events.
A fundamental gap persists. Emergency services often don’t know what vehicle data exists, and automakers don’t fully understand what responders actually need. Closing this loop between vehicles, dispatchers, responders, clinicians, and researchers is now the central challenge.
Global Lessons and PSAP Realities
International examples reinforced that success depends as much on governance as on technology. Japan’s HELPNET and D-Call Net show what’s possible with coordinated public-private support. Europe mandates eCall, yet many PSAPs still struggle to ingest and operationalize the data.
From the PSAP perspective, realities are stark. Centers vary widely in tech readiness and scale (over 68% of the nation’s 5,700 emergency call centers have 5 seats or less). Hundreds of calls may report a single crash, often triggered simultaneously by vehicles, phones, and wearables. Dispatchers face the paradox of too much data—and not enough of the right data. Location accuracy, occupant count, injury severity, vehicle type, and hazards consistently ranked highest. The consensus: automation must handle what it can, so humans can focus on judgment-critical decisions.
The Path Forward
AACN and ISP models can work but they require broader deployment, richer data, continuous validation, and downstream readiness. Smartphone-based crash detection is helping close coverage gaps across an aging vehicle parc. Privacy concerns, while real, are largely navigable when the purpose is clear, saving lives.
At CES 2026, SBD Automotive co-published new consumer research and insights on AACN and continues working across the mobility ecosystem to accelerate adoption of these technologies.
There is no longer a question of possibility, but of alignment and speed. Voluntary, cross-sector collaboration not siloed innovation or mandates alone has driven the most progress globally. Post-crash response is a solvable problem. The opportunity now is ensuring data flows seamlessly from vehicle to dispatcher to responder to clinician, turning seconds into survival.
Learn More
SBD Automotive is actively involved and publishes independent research on AACN, post-crash response, and connected safety readiness across OEMs and the emergency response value chain. If you’re shaping connected safety strategies or emergency response integration, we’d welcome a conversation. Get in touch to access the latest research or set up a call.