Want to know what’s ahead? Your Volvo car can help you

Thanks to the warning, you are prepared and can react proactively. As you calmly decelerate and come around the next curve, you see a crashed car in your lane. This is how our new Accident Ahead Alert can help you.

It’s designed to instantly alert you about a traffic accident up to a few hundred metres ahead and help you avoid collisions and traffic congestion. It will be available in Volvo cars in Europe, starting from Denmark.

It builds on our industry-first connected safety technology, which allows Volvo cars to communicate with each other using Volvo Cars’ cloud. This means that, for the first time, cars can alert drivers of accidents ahead directly using real-time data from a traffic management centre.

The technology will also use real-time data from compatible cars on the roads, starting with other Volvo cars.

“Using our groundbreaking connected safety technology, our Accident Ahead Alert can help Volvo drivers avoid unpleasant surprises, while contributing to making roads safer for all,” says Åsa Haglund, head of Volvo Cars Safety Centre. “Thanks to our collaboration with the Danish Road Directorate and other partners in the Data for Road Safety ecosystem, we can introduce this new feature and continue our leadership in safety innovations.”

We encourage you to join us in making roads safer for all by opting in for data sharing in your Volvo car – simply activate the “connected safety” option in your car’s centre display. The car will then be able to alert you of an accident ahead by using the hazard light alert in the dashboard, and if available, the head-up display. Rest assured that only the essential information will be shared with other cars and the data will be anonymised to ensure your privacy.

“We’re happy that Volvo Cars as the first car maker has started using our new real-time traffic event data feed,” says Stine Bendsen, head of the Danish Traffic Management Centre at the Danish Road Directorate. “A quick alert about an accident ahead gives the driver more time to slow down and increase their distance to the car in front. This helps to lower the risk of follow-up collisions and protect the people working to clear the road.”

The Accident Ahead Alert is the latest feature to use our pioneering connected safety technology, which was first introduced in 2016. It allows Volvo cars to alert each other of nearby slippery road conditions and hazards, and in the same way, drivers can now be alerted to accidents ahead – regardless of the time of day.

The feature is currently available in Denmark on all our 90, 60 and 40 series car models from model year 2016 and onwards. Looking ahead, we’re planning to integrate more traffic data shared by other partners in the European Data for Road Safety ecosystem, including national traffic management centres in other countries and cars from other brands.