The Department of Transportation has published a new notice of proposed rulemaking which will mandate that vehicles be equipped with technology to be able to ‘talk’ to other vehicles on the road in order to help prevent accidents.
Interestingly, the DOT is issuing the rule not for trucks and other heavy vehicles, but for cars.
“The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking would enable vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication technology on all new light-duty vehicles, enabling a multitude of new crash-avoidance applications that, once fully deployed, could prevent hundreds of thousands of crashes every year by helping vehicles ‘talk’ to each other.”
Safety advocates are already cheering on the new proposed rule. The National Safety Council issued a statement saying that the new technology is a “game changer,” and that it’s a necessary step “if we expect to get to zero roadway deaths.”
Others however, including the Competitive Enterprise Institute, see the new rule as “all pain, no gain.” The CEI is a pro-business think-tank which receives funding from companies including the Ford Motor Company, Philip Morris, and Pfizer. According to the CEI, the mandatory implementation of new technologies in all new light vehicles would bring about only “hypothetical safety benefits” and would take too long to implement, during which time the government should be focused on “more promising safety technologies.”
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration meanwhile has concluded that the new technology could eliminate or mitigate the severity of 80 percent of non-impaired crashes.
Source: fleetowner
This only makes sense …. Some stupid truck mfgs and fleets were planning on making the tech proprietary and only helpful to them while “Platooning”.
This would open the doors for all to share in the more efficient and safer operation of platooning vehicles and also open the door to the reality of Autonomous vehicles implementation on our roadways as common place in the next decade.
Nonsense. Chucky.
What is the point of even having cars if they have to be driven by a machine? Everybody slobbers over air bags, seat belts, antilock brakes, 4 wheel drive, cameras, blah blah blah. …but there is no emphasis on driving the right way. Traffic laws are routinely ignored, almost to the point of being useless. The only way there will ever be no crashes or injuries is…..make everybody walk.
I think the most beneficial technology is one that causes vehicles to maintain safe spacing. The single largest cause of accidents in ANY type of vehicle is following too close. We all see it daily. Open up the space and we have time to react to incidents in front of us.
“you can’t fix stupid” but with all the “automation” in the car’s driver forgot (or did not know) how do drive. In Oregon, an off ramp causes major issues and traffic to stop on the freeway for no reason.
while I am not in favor of losing control over what my car does (some you can’t even turn off the lights) I have seen so many accidents because someone did some totally stupid or was in a hurry to go nowhere.
I’m guessing most of these communications ” Conversations” won’t be pleasant. Instead of flipping a birdie, people will be able to literally speak their mind, and that could cause lots of road rage problems.
We could have some new way of connecting, there might be some first dates, or even quickies on the shoulder, but, nothing is going to make the roads safer if drivers don’t follow the rules and the posted signs, use some common sense, and definitely STOP TEXTING WHILE THEY DRIVE.
Unless I misunderstood I don’t think it will be the people in the vehicle “talking” to the other vehicles. The people inside the vehicle will have no say in what transpires between so equipped autos..
Your sarcasm is funny but wrong communication. Also sarcasm with a law is just stupid. Laws change the way we live and has no place for it.
When the cars talk (share info) saying I’m here don’t hit me. It is grabbing info now in the bigger picture. Gov, insurance and other will get the info from this law. No need for high speed Chase ,no need to know who or how you got hit, the id on the computer will know.
Once again the government wants to get involved in the trucking industry…All government has ever done when they got involved was screw it up…This new technology if fine, but we all know what will happen when hackers start hacking these computers!! Autonomous trucks running over 4 wheelers, pedestrians!!! Then after that happens the people will want to blame the trucking companies, or the companies that developed the computers…If they want to blame someone…Look no further than the UNITED STATES government for sticking their nose where it doesn’t belong in the first place!!
This is the next step to removing the entire “truck driver” job description as crash mitigation software is already going into trucks now, like it or not.
Like in the ’70’s with mandatory 55 the motoring public won’t stand for it, but like stagared speed limits it will end up in truckers lap. Complete automation in 30 years and no OTR trucking jobs.
Get your tin cup and cardboard sign ready for your next full time off-ramp gig.
Let’s see how these vehicles do during rush hour… the amount of data attempting to be trasmittied will be overwhelming… hell cell phones still have problems negotiating tower changes, it all boils down to driver behavior and the laws tolerance for traffic infractions. Aggressive driving, inability to merge with traffic, speeding, trip planning etc.. all behavorial issues that need to be remedied first. JMO
The fact that they will talk to each other means that they will have wifi. Since the vehicles computer will be connected to the internet means that they can easily be hacked and remotely taken over. I foresee more devastating crashes in the future not less.