The problem Mapcident solves

The Global status report on road safety **by WHO, published in 2018, highlights that the number of annual road traffic deaths has reached 1.35 million. Road traffic injuries are now the leading killer of people aged between 5-29 years.

A few major causes of these deaths and critical injuries are the late medical response, bystanders’ negligence,, and inability to contact the right emergency services. The matter in concern is very critical and for the person involved in such accidents, every second is crucial for their health.

A worse scenario could be that someone is present a few miles from where you have crashed and could help save your life, but isn’t aware of the accident.

Such preventable yet tragic scenarios are present in our day-to-day life and lead to the 1.35 million deaths we see each year and that’s what we seek to solve with Mapcident

Challenges we ran into

Helping in such a situation is generally human nature, however, some people require an incentive to commit good deeds. That’s why we aim to provide “Karmas 🧡” as credits to the users if they go to a location and manage to help the injured person. These credits would be redeemable at stores/brands we plan to partner with in the future.

Knowing that this is a very sensitive issue, and false reporting could lead to a lot of stress among family members, we plan to alarm the user’s phone once a possible crash/accident is detected. Within a user-specified time (maximum of 2 minutes) of the alarm, the user can manually reject a false claim, and our app would note the data/readings in that case to prevent similar false claims in the future.

Another questionable yet possible act from the user end was the possibility of a user faking a helping act just to earn credits. This was a crucial hurdle for us since if not handled correctly it would’ve disrupted the functioning of the whole product. We tackled it by using Radar.io’s distance API that verifies the assistance is detected within 10 meters of the victim’s device.

Looking at this situation from a user experience perspective we have designed the user interface such that it’s easily navigable and accessible. Emphasis on big buttons and text is prominent throughout the app and usage of bright red color for the SOS pop-screens makes it easier for users to identify the screens and alerts.