U.S. Government Wants V2V Technology In All New Cars To Reduce Crashes

[Lucian Armasu]

The U.S. Department of Transportation announced that it will require all new cars to use Vehicle-to-Vehicle technology to reduce accidents by up to 80 percent.

U.S. Government Wants V2V Technology In All New Cars To Reduce Crashes : Read more

 

[hoofhearted]

This will be the first thing I rip out of my new car!

 

[hoofhearted]

And you thought red light cameras were bad! Police can determine speed and give tickets wirelessly. Running a redlight, etc. Screw this!

 

[dstarr3]

And the tinfoil hats already make an appearance in the comment section. Awesome.

 

[blitzkrieg316]

And big brother can record your driving habits and relay that to the insurance companies. Oh, you said you drive less than 10k a year, but we have you at 10,201... INSURANCE CANCELLED. Erratic driving; signal the cops because you might be drunk. And the list goes on...

In theory, if this was used in the best of intentions it's great, but you know that'll never be the case.

 

[whiteruski]

We already use driving behavior to reduce insurance costs i.e. Progressive's Snapshot or Allstate's Drivewise.

 

[TechyInAZ]

This will be the first thing I rip out of my new car!

Haha, I don't care if it's in it. All I care about is if I can turn it off if I want to.

 

[Matt_550]

This will be the first thing I rip out of my new car!

Get ready for a hefty fine for illegally modifying the vehicle. Hope you can afford the feed for the horse your going to need.

 

[DrakeFS]

Driving is a privilege, not a right.

While I would love for V2V to implemented with no human interaction (other than defining how, what, and who it communicates with) after the fact, we all know this will not be the case. LEO will want a kill switch (which will probably be abused somehow), Multiple agencies will want the data we generate while driving and few agencies will want the ability to track in real time.

Even so, in my opinion, it would be worth it if V2V reached a 40% reduction in automobile accidents.

 

[maxiim]

As someone who actually enjoys driving, this is a pretty poor step forward. Folks who buy cars because they have to drive, to get to work or school etc, may needs this as driving isnt something they are good at or interested in. But people who do drive for sport or enjoyment this "automatic assistance" is quite detrimental.

EDIT:An off or opt out option on vehicles would be much more useful, and perhaps would allow insurance companies to stop gouging folks when they have such "safety/tracking" equipment.

 

[hdmark]

I would love it for the warnings but I would want to disable the automatic control.

knowing that the car 2 cars in front of me hit the breaks, or if the guy to my left is merging into my lane would also be very useful things to appear on the dashboard or even be projected to the windshield somehow . but ya... I don't want my car to drive for me just yet

 

[surphninja]

As someone who actually enjoys driving, this is a pretty poor step forward. Folks who buy cars because they have to drive, to get to work or school etc, may needs this as driving isnt something they are good at or interested in. But people who do drive for sport or enjoyment this "automatic assistance" is quite detrimental.

EDIT:An off or opt out option on vehicles would be much more useful, and perhaps would allow insurance companies to stop gouging folks when they have such "safety/tracking" equipment.

People who want to drive for sport or enjoyment should find a closed course to do so. There shouldn't be an opt-out for public roads.

 

[surphninja]

I hope that this is paired with legislation to require car companies follow stricter security procedures. After the news we've seen with smart cars being hacked, requiring all cars be able to communicate with each other seems like it could go very wrong very quick.

 

[Matt_550]

I hope that this is paired with legislation to require car companies follow stricter security procedures. After the news we've seen with smart cars being hacked, requiring all cars be able to communicate with each other seems like it could go very wrong very quick.

Yeah, about that.... It'll never happen car companies will just hide the flaws until they can't hide them anymore like they have already done with many recalls. The government will never fine auto companies what they should. Neither party would back those fines the dems because it would harm the UAW and the repubs because it would harm a business and/or somehow harm consumers.

 

[surphninja]

Yeah, about that.... It'll never happen car companies will just hide the flaws until they can't hide them anymore like they have already done with many recalls. The government will never fine auto companies what they should. Neither party would back those fines the dems because it would harm the UAW and the repubs because it would harm a business and/or somehow harm consumers.

It'll happen, but unfortunately it'll take some horror story going viral.

 

[egmccann]

People who want to drive for sport or enjoyment should find a closed course to do so. There shouldn't be an opt-out for public roads.

You realize "Driving for enjoyment" does not necessarily mean "Racing," right?

 

[zanny]

And you thought red light cameras were bad! Police can determine speed and give tickets wirelessly. Running a redlight, etc. Screw this!

This is a good thing. Anywhere people are regularly speeding - highways, underrated motorways - need to have their posted speeds adjusted to what people actually travel at. If its a law people can ignore because the likelihood of being ticketed for it are relatively low, nobody cares to change an obviously broken system of speed limits.

> such as stop signs, letting drivers know how long until the light changes.

This is literally the most important thing in my life ever. Whenever I'm on a major thoroughfare that has lights but also has highway speeds its always incredibly unnerving to worry about the lights I'm approaching changing yellow and then red on my approach because the people who time those things are masochists. I'm not sure if its going to have the range to present that info on a light at such a distance but I sure hope so.

 

[DrakeFS]

You realize "Driving for enjoyment" does not necessarily mean "Racing," right?

Depends on you definition of "enjoyment". If you are talking about "Sunday stroll" in the mountains, along the coast or <insert picturesque driving spot here>, then this system would likely have very little affect on your enjoyment of said drive.

If you enjoy taking a curvy road at speed, then this system may annoy you (and rightfully so). The point is, if you driving in a manner that this system would annoy you, you should probably be doing it on a closed course. The system could be GPS managed automatically. There are plenty of systems installed in cars right now, that will disable speed governors when at the race track (GEO Fencing by GPS).

Besides track days are great, and any driving enthusiast should attend one at least once.

 

[surphninja]

You realize "Driving for enjoyment" does not necessarily mean "Racing," right?

I do, but as driving moves more towards automation, the most dangerous people on the road will be those doing all the driving manually. Within the next couple of decades, it'll either be illegal to drive manually and/or the insurance rates will be so high for manual cars that no one will do it.

 

[surphninja]

And the tinfoil hats already make an appearance in the comment section. Awesome.

None of the worries I've seen here seem at all outrageous, especially post Snowden.

But I guess some people need a whistleblower to show them the actual documentation to be convinced.

 

[none12345]

I could argue it from either side.... road signs, stop lights, lane markers etc all communicating to a vehicle can be nothing but positive.

But ya on the vehicle communicating back, i can see a lot of issues with that.

As far as people being worried insurance companies are spying on them because they are driving like crap. Well, as much as im against companies spying on you, i consider that a good thing. Most people think they are great drivers, almost everyone thinks they can drive MUCH better then they actually can. The truth is people suck at driving, and the massive body count each year is a perfect indicator of that. Remember if everyone is tracked then it will be the bad drivers getting charged more for instance, which is a good thing for safe drivers. You(reader) think you are a safe driver right....which means your premiums will go down once the bad drivers are found out.

What im more worried about is tracking ones movements, not how you drive, but where you drive. As a privacy advocate, i want that data to NOT be tracked.

My car receiving a signal that a car is on its right is fine, my car transmitting a signal that im a car moving at such and such speed etc is fine. My car transmitting a unique ID along with that data is NOT fine, because then everything i do is tracked. Regardless of what laws are on the books to say i wont be tracked, you know damn well you will be tracked. If nothing else you will be tracked by billboards, ad agencies etc. Unfortunately you know that a unique id along with that data will be mandatory....so there will be lots of potential for abuse.

I just hope that all v2v communications are treated as hostile data. And are only used as a confirmation for on board sensors. The potential for abuse is high if they don't start from the standpoint that all incomming data is suspect.

 

[hdmark]

i think this would be better done in a fully automated setting. i love the idea of NO ONE having control of their own cars and computers running traffic. i mean ignoring accidents completely. imagining the HOURS of avoided traffic because of the lack of rubberneckers, people who don't know how to merge properly, or just people who don't know how to drive.

the semi automation scares me a little still. im hesistant of semi automation as well as some cars having it and some not.

regardless... i cant wait till i can just hop in my car , tell it where i want to go and not even have the thought of a car accident cross my mind

 

[toffty]

Within the next couple of decades, it'll either be illegal to drive manually and/or the insurance rates will be so high for manual cars that no one will do it.

This hits the nail on the head. Thank you!
I'll add i hope it's within the next decade and not decades, the technology is literally here already (well 2 years for the first fully-automated commercially available vehicles)

The most dangerous part about driving is the unpredictable nature of humans. Fully automating vehicles will drop the number of accidents considerably. I won't say 0 because there will be bugs in the software. The software will mature over time and I am willing to bet that these accidents are all low speeds due to all of the secondary/tertiary override systems to prevent accidents.

Those who are concerned about hacking should be concerned.
Should it stop progress? No
Should it be the catalyst for questions and investigations? Yes

 

[toffty]

As someone who actually enjoys driving, this is a pretty poor step forward.

I don't want to sound mean but find another hobby. Driving is not going to be an activity for much longer. Just like elevator operators (the people who pulled the lever to raise/lower the elevators for the passengers) were replaced by computers so too will all drivers be replaced by computers.

 

[chicofehr]

Unfortunately this means cars sold in Canada will have V2V as well. What ever the US does Canada always seems to follow. Though we got nation wide texting laws before the US did even though it started in California. The closest closed (paved) driving course is 10 hours away for me, so spinning, doing doughnuts and driving in a more fun manner would be very hard legally. I'm a little jealous of you who have one everywhere around you but I hate city life so I live with it