Patent ID: 7099776

Claim:
An emergency vehicle alert system for providing information as to a location of an emergency vehicle to a motor vehicle, the system comprising: a first GPS receiving unit that is provided on said emergency vehicle and that is configured to receive a plurality of GPS signals from a plurality of GPS satellites and to determine emergency vehicle location information of said emergency vehicle; a radio-wave transmitter unit that is provided on said emergency vehicle and that is configured to transmit said emergency vehicle location information by way of an emergency vehicle location signal that includes said emergency vehicle location information; a second GPS receiving unit that is provided on said motor vehicle and that is configured to receive a plurality of GPS signals from a plurality of GPS satellites and to determine vehicle location information of said motor vehicle as a result thereof; a radio-wave receiver unit that is provided on said motor vehicle and that is configured to receive the emergency location signal output by said radio-wave transmitter unit of said emergency vehicle; and a map display that is provided on said motor vehicle and that is configured to display, on a map, a current location of said motor vehicle as provided by the vehicle location information, and the map display configured to display, on the map, a current location of said emergency vehicle as provided by the emergency vehicle location information obtained from the emergency vehicle location signal received by said radio-wave receiver unit when said radio-wave receiver unit is in radio-wave communication range with respect to said radio-wave transmitter unit, wherein the map display displays said emergency vehicle as an icon on the map display with a different visual characteristic when said emergency vehicle is determined to be at a particular location relative to said motor vehicle.