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City hijacks drivers’ radios to warn about ambulances

The Radio Ambulance generates a frequency sweep to all AM/FM radios and broadcasting a 5 second message

By EMS1 Staff

GUAYAQUIL, Ecuador - An Ecuadorean city is employing an innovative method to warn drivers about approaching ambulances: taking over their radios and broadcasting alerts.

The Radio Ambulance was developed with the assistance of creative agency Maruri Grey, which worked with the Radio Association of Ecuador to outfit ambulances with low-power broadcast antennas that override all AM and FM stations within a one kilometer radius of the vehicle, according to Gizmodo.

According to the site, the app is capable of generating a frequency sweep to all AM/FM radios and broadcasting a 5 second message. Each sweep would last up to 3 minutes.

The developers claim that the device has speeded up ambulance response times by more than 40 percent.