Talking Cars Could Soon Be Parked In Every Driveway

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The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is making a push to require talking cars with vehicle-to vehicle(V2V) communication in every vehicle. They say the technology would make it possible for your car to anticipate and take action to avoid a collision before you even realize there’s any trouble.

V2V technology is designed to let vehicles talk to one another through a radio signal. That signal would include things like speed, heading and position and would be transmitted out to surrounding vehicles.

This would let a vehicle’s computer anticipate a pending collision and alert the driver through a tone, warning light, or even a seat that vibrates. Think the same kinds of warnings we already get from our cars when we drift lanes or there’s someone in our blind spot.

Taking it a step further, thee V2V system could do more than just warn us about a potential collision, but take action to stop it altogether. Imagine your car stopping suddenly because someone is running a red light just as you would have passed through an intersection. You might not see it coming, but your car could and that could prevent an accident.

The NHTSA has been working on this for the past decade in cooperation with auto manufacturers as a potentially life-saving safety advancement. They estimate that it could prevent as much as 80% of accidents involving drunk drivers or mechanical failures.

It could end up working hand-in-hand with autonomous vehicles. A car driving by itself is an interesting yet slightly frightening thought since it can’t think like a human, but V2V technology would give it more input and a greater ability to mimic our decisions, only a heck of a lot more quickly.

The process for pushing through this type of legislation is lengthy, starting with an official agency report and then a 90-day waiting period for the public and automakers to comment. After that, it’s down to regulators to draft a proposal which could take months, but transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx plans to get this proposal out to President Obama before his term is over.

There’s still the question of how the public will react to all this technology, especially given people’s concerns about driverless cars. What do you think? Are you thrilled about the prospect of your car doing its own thing, or would you rather take the wheel yourself? Let us know in the comments!

Watch the 2014 Jeep Cherokee show off self-driving technology as it perpendicular parks itself…

Nicole Wakelin fell in love with cars as a teenager when she got to go for a ride in a Ferrari. It was red and it was fast and that was all that mattered. Game over. She considers things a bit more carefully now, but still has a weakness for fast, beautiful cars. Nicole also writes for NerdApproved and GeekMom.