A shift in safety thinking.
Posted on by Kolbe
Up until recently, the automotive industry has improved safety by creating airbags, seatbelts, crumple zones, and other such things to aid in keeping drivers and passengers safe during and accident. Now the US DOT is beginning to look at ways to prevent crashes with vehicle technology. The DOT is currently looking at establishing a short ranged radio system geared towards allowing “connected vehicles” to talk to each other. This technology would allow the transmission of vehicle speed, location, direction and other important data to other connected vehicles. Now, rather than keeping you safe when you get into an accident, your car will be able to “know” if another car is going to run their red light. Your car will alert you of the danger allowing you to avoid the accident altogether. There is even talk of integrating these features with the safety features of the car to allow the car itself to jump in and avoid the crash, either by braking automatically, or some other form of accident avoidance. The plan will take some time, and require a lot of cooperation to be implemented. The NHTSA plans on implementing rules for installing such systems before the end of the Obama administration. This way it will allow automakers to know about the communication standards needed in their cars. Rules and regulations will also need to be established and a segment of the radio spectrum will need to be kept free to use with this technology. Although the timeframe may take a while, these seem to be steps in the right direction when it comes to traffic safety, with estimates of reducing up to eighty percent of the current 30,000 traffic fatalities a year.