Cars to communicate with each other on the highway

The U.S Department of Transportation plans to propose a mandatory car-to-car wireless system.
The U.S. Department of Transportation will propose making all new cars talk to each other so they can warn
drivers of impending collisions.
Tests have shown that V2V (vehicle-to-vehicle)communications works in the real world and would be accepted by consumers, the DOT said Monday. The agency is analyzing the results of a yearlong pilot program and plans to publish a report in the coming weeks, then seek public opinion before officially proposing to make it mandatory.
Cars with V2V wirelessly transmit safety information such as speed and location among themselves 10 times per second, the DOT said. It can work over hundreds of yards
(meters) between cars that aren’t visible to each other. It could prevent common types of accidents such as rear-end collisions, crashes in intersections and cars hitting each other during lane changes, the agency said.
Such a system could help drivers safely make decisions such as whether to pass another vehicle on a two-lane
road or make a left turn against oncoming traffic. Ford Motor Co. demonstrated such a system last month at the International CES. There, a V2V-equipped Ford Taurus
SHO sedan entered an intersection at the same time that another, unseen car was approaching from the right. It
warned the Taurus driver of the impending crash with flashing lights, an alarm sound and seat vibrations.
The systems DOT is now proposing don’t take control of the car, only warn drivers to take action themselves. The
system will have several layers of security and privacy protection.