How Cars Of The Future Will Talk To Each Other And Prevent Road Traffic Accidents
As the UK government considers a two-tier system for road users – with those using B-roads only set to receive lower insurance premiums – researchers in the US are continuing to perfect the technology which would ease road congestion and road traffic accidents by enabling cars to communicate with each other.
Vehicle-to-vehicle communication has been one of the ways researchers are trying to make travelling by car much safer and cut the number of injuries from road traffic accidents.
The US government says that 80 per cent of road traffic accidents could be prevented using car-to-car communications.
In September 2011, a team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) was bankrolled by the US government’s Department of Transport (DOT) to the tune of $14.9m to road test the technology.
The first cars able to communicate with each other use short-range radio waves to enable them to pick up traffic signals and generally “chat” to each other about their positioning on the road.
In the future, the brains of the outfit may not be a car driver, but the car itself, which will be able to tell the driver when it is safe to overtake, for example – and will use GPS to monitor speed and the direction of travel.
Injuries from road traffic accidents are now one of the most common causes of personal injury among UK motorists, as well as UK holidaymakers travelling in cars abroad.
Drivers can currently download apps which will help them monitor speed and even record accidents as they occur, alerting the emergency services when an impact is detected.
Apps can also now detect when a driver is nodding off at the wheel and sound an alert to wake them up.
However, vehicle-to-vehicle technology puts road safety in the hands of the vehicle – and some researchers are so convinced that this is the future that a self-drive vehicle which can map the road ahead and detect obstacles has also been developed and is being road tested in the US.
The DARPA self-driving car can plot a route, be aware of where it is heading and where it has been – and can also sense obstacles ahead, as well as registering a road traffic accident, bringing the vehicle to a stop.
Although researchers are enthusiastic about self-driving technology and car-to-car communication, no one can yet say for sure how many road traffic accidents might be prevented, or when the technology will be available to consumers – or whether car-to-car communication will mean cheaper car insurance or another hike in premiums to cover payouts from the spiralling numbers of those being inured in road traffic accidents.
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