BRUCETON MILLS, W.Va. (WBOY) — In just one month there were at least two accidents in West Virginia either involved emergency services struck while responding to a scene or road workers being struck, and the HAAS Alert Company is trying to help curb those instances.

On Sunday, a representative from the company visited the Bruceton-Brandonville Volunteer Fire Department to speak with local law enforcement, EMS officials and tow companies to teach them about the Safety Cloud technology that alerts drivers near the area know when to slow down and move over.

HAAS Alert Senior Account Manager, Nicholas Chiaramonte, is hopeful the technology will make a difference.

“With the work zone alerting, our alerts actually work directly with the emergency lights so as soon as our emergency lights are on, that vehicle is indicating that they’re at risk or that they’re responding to an emergency or roadside event and when those lights go on, our alerts are going out, when those lights go off our alerts stop going out,” Chiaramonte said. “So we’re not going to have those lag work zone alerts, it’s only when the work zone is actually happening that we’re alerting drivers.”

Law enforcement or road workers can connect the special HAAS Alert System to their vehicles and when activated, it sends and alert to all drivers around the area who are using Apple Maps or the Waze App.

Chiaramonte said the company currently does not have a partnership with Google Maps, but it does have partnerships with automakers. They’re currently partnered with automakers Volkswagen and Stellantis where all 2018 models or newer have the system already built into the vehicle. These system are able to work worldwide.

“So you don’t need to be running an app, you don’t need to have anything hooked up specifically. It’ll actually interrupt the vehicle, say ‘Emergency vehicle, tow vehicle or work zone ahead,’” Chiaramonte said. During the meeting with the departments, he said a new automaker they’ve recently partnered with is Mercedes.  

According to the Canadian Automobile Association (CAA), which has partnered up with HAAS since 2023, a 2024 survey conducted by CAA “reports that 13 percent of Ontario drivers have received these alerts, and, of those, 97 percent slowed down and moved over.”

To learn more about HAAS, you can go here.

This article was originally published by Barbara Ron at 12 WBOY