By Mike Spector
U.S. regulators proposed requiring all new cars to feature technology allowing them to “talk” to one another, a step toward modernizing vehicles to use the airwaves for anticipating and avoiding crashes.
The Transportation Department on Tuesday proposed a rule mandating so-called vehicle-to-vehicle communications on all new light vehicles in the U.S. that would feed information to motorists to help them avoid collisions. Officials hope the technology can help cut traffic fatalities that topped 35,000 in 2015 and are more than 90{d2cec4f4bfd8ff65a3f480fddbbf0473131c36ee52338633ce32312b37f1e1cb} of the time tied to human mistakes.
The technology, often dubbed “V2V,” aims to flag conditions such as stalled vehicles or unseen cars speeding through intersections in an effort to give motorists “advance warning of potentially life-threatening accidents,” said Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx. It enables cars to exchange radio messages that can see around corners and through traffic to detect, for instance, vehicles emerging from behind large trucks, regulators said. Motorists then receive warnings of impending dangers.