If Only They Talked to Each Other
If vehicles could “talk” to each other, would driving be better and safer? That question isn’t in the realm of sci-fi anymore. Turns out we (as in mankind) have already been collecting data on this topic. For the past 10 months, about 2,800 volunteers in Michigan have been driving vehicles fitted with this vehicles-to-vehicles communication technology. But until now, it’s been (mostly) just been transmitting data, not processing or acting upon it. The intent was to check how effective this data exchange is in the real world street. But now we are ready to move to Step 2: the US Department of Transportation will be evaluating a demo to be organized this week by the University of Michigan. This demo will have the software process all that incoming data and then act on it, like issuing warnings to the driver and making choices. If it gets the green light (pun intended), the eventual plan is to extend this communication beyond just vehicles to include traffic lights and toll boo...