US Dept. of Transportation makes vehicle-to-vehicle communication proposal
Vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication is a rapidly growing area of development in the realm of auto safety. A new proposal that was just announced by the United States' Department of Transportation (DoT) is calling for the implementation of mandatory V2V technology in all new light-duty vehicles.
Cars with V2V capabilities are essentially talking to each other on the road. Within fractions of seconds, these vehicles are able to transmit vital information about speed, direction, and location. It would give drivers a significant window in which they could be aware of an errant driver and anticipate a dangerous manouevre or collision early enough to avoid it. Currently, the range of V2V is 1,000 yards in all directions. The DoT's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that V2V technology, along with a similarly designed communication system called Vehicle-to-Infrastructure, could prevent up to 80% of non-impaired crashes.
V2V also appears to be able to weather any concerns over privacy that could arise with a public communication system that shares information regarding private property. First and foremost, automakers would have to comply with the department's cybersecurity guidelines. And the messages themselves are trimmed of any unnecessary information. They are anonymous and provide no more data about a vehicle than what someone could currently glean by quickly observing it.
Supporters and opponents of the proposal will now have a 90-day comment period to weigh in on it before it can be made final. If passed, it would require 50 per cent of new vehicles to be equipped with the technology in the next two years, and for all of them to have it after four years.