Future cars will alert emergency services after a crash

"The car is probably going to be the most computer-intensive possession that we will have," said Steve Wainwright, from Freescale Semiconductor which produces chips that go inside car control systems.

Computer systems will change and improve the way we drive a car, according to Wainwright. "All of us who feel we are better drivers now than we were ten years ago, that's probably because we are getting more help than we realise," he added.

On average today's cars are already fitted with between 25 and 30 microcomputers controlling such systems as the Electronic Stability Programme (ESP), the Anti-Locking Brakes (ABS), night vision and other systems.

Paul Burnley, an analyst from the automotive market research company SBD, said in future more advanced computer systems would feed emergency services with data, "perhaps letting them analyse this and build a profile of the crash and evaluate the risk of serious injury to the occupants".