The new technology allows cars to warn each other of the accident

The new technology allows cars to warn each other of the accident

launchx431 A car can see coming a deadly accident, even if the driver does not, the government of the United States said, indicating it will automakers to equip new vehicles with a technology that can warn other cars they risk plunging.

The action, a few years of rest, a "potential game-changing" to cut collisions, deaths and injuries, federal transportation officials at a news conference Monday.

A radio signal stops transmitting the vehicle position, heading, speed and other information. Cars and light trucks should receive the same information back from other cars, and the computer of a vehicle would alert its driver an imminent collision. Alerts could be a flashing message, play a sound, or the driver's seat rumbling. Some systems can even automatically brake to avoid an accident if manufacturers choose to include this option.

Your car would "see" when another car or truck equipped with the same technology was on the point of running a red light, even if the vehicle is hidden in a corner. Your car would also know when a car several vehicles ahead in traffic had made a sudden stop and warn you before you see brake lights technology operates at about 300 meters.

If communities choose to invest in technology, roads and traffic lights could start talking about cars, too, sending warnings of traffic congestion or road hazards ahead in time for drivers to take a detour.

Technology is distinct from automatic safety devices using sensors and radars that are already under construction in some high-end vehicles today and are considered as the basis for future self-driving cars . But government officials and industry see two compatible technologies. If ongoing conversations between cars to make driving safer, while the self-driving cars become safer as well.

autocom cdp The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, who has worked with car manufacturers on the technology of the last decade, says communications vehicle to vehicle could prevent up to 80 percent of the accidents that do not involve drunk drivers or mechanical failure .

Accidents involving a driver with a BAC of 0.08 or more accounted for nearly a third of 33,500 road accidents in the United States in 2012, according to the security agency.

Technology represents the beginning of a new era in automotive safety, in which the focus is "to prevent accidents in the first place," compared to previous efforts to ensure accidents are to survive, said David Friedman , the director of the agency.

No orders to manufacturers is imminent, officials said.

A report by the agency, the public and automakers will have 90 days to comment, regulators will begin drafting a proposal, and this process could take months or years. But Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said he intends to publish a proposal before President Barack Obama leaves office.

"It will change the behavior that we know in time," said Scott Belcher, President and CEO of the Intelligent Transportation Society of America. "The leaders of the automobile will rethink how they design and build cars because they will no longer build cars to survive an accident, but their construction to avoid an accident."

Government officials declined to give an estimate of the amount of technology would increase the price of a new car, but the shipping company estimated that it would cost about $ 100 to $ 200 per vehicle.

Automakers are enthusiastic about technology from vehicle to vehicle, but feel that there are technical, security and confidentiality of important issues that need to be made first, said Gloria Bergquist, vice president of the Alliance of automakers.

Technology "could play a more important in the future road safety role, but many pieces of a large puzzle still need to come together," she said.

Technology the government plans contain multiple layers of security and protection of privacy for the information exchanged between the vehicles do not allow them to identify, but contains only safety data base, officials said.

Security benefits can not be achieved until there is a critical mass of cars and trucks on the road using the technology. It takes several years to set fleet of the nation, but the technology could start to prevent accidents before.

Volvo PROSIS security benefits can be seen with as little 7 percent to 10 percent of vehicles in a given similarly equipped area, said Paul Feenstra, a spokesman for the transport company, an umbrella organization for research and the development of new transport technologies.

There may be another way to speed things up, according to a presentation last year by the technology company Qualcomm communication. About 45 percent of Americans use smartphones, and this share is growing. If smartphones, which already have GPS, was equipped with a radio chip, they could be used to equip the vehicles already on the road so they can communicate with each other. This would make it possible to reach a market penetration rate of 50 percent within five years, Qualcomm believes.

Use of cell phones could also extend the benefits of technology connected car safety for pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists, Belcher said. A driver could be alerted to a possible collision with a pedestrian carrying a smartphone sending information, even if it was too dark to see the person. More than 4,700 pedestrians were killed by vehicles and 76,000 injured in 2012.

V-checker V301 But there are significant technical barriers and the normalization using cell phones to support the connected car technologies. battery life of mobile phone, for example, the need for antennas, radio frequency issues and concerns that cell phone GPS functions may not be as accurate as those of a vehicle manufactured with special technology.