Talking Cars?

In August, we sent out a Weekend Word touching on Uber rolling out driverless cars in Pittsburgh (Click here for a refresher) and some more interesting news has come out on the subject that we felt was worth mentioning.  Turns out this is likely only the beginning of a much larger change. The Federal Department of Transportation issued a proposal that would take technologies developed by Carnegie Mellon and Uber and expound on them. 

The proposal essentially will require that all passenger cars and trucks to “talk” with one another.  The vehicle-to-vehicle communication or V2V works by short range radio signals to relay information such as location, speed and direction to cars within at least 300 meters.  If anything were to be amiss, the signals could activate warning signals 10 times a second.  V2V in conjunction with other technologies could reduce crashes up to 80% and could cost as little as $100.  The expectation is that 50% of vehicles manufactured in 2021 will have the new equipment and 100% of vehicles manufactured after 2023.

While this is still years away, hopefully this can make a significant impact in reducing accidents.