NHTSA 2016 V2V Proposal Open For Public Comment

As reported earlier, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration unveiled plans to mandate vehicle-to-vehicle technology within the next few years through a proposal that could take just as long to make it through Congress. Since then, more details and reactions about the V2V proposal have come out. Autoblog reports the plan, which will be available for public comment for the next 60 days, points to two specific applications of V2V that could prevent as many as 592,000 accidents and 1,083 fatalities annually by 2020 if implemented: left-turn assist and intersection-movement detection systems. The agency also adds V2V could be used to aid with detecting blind spots, alert drivers regarding forward collision, and warn them when not to pass on the road. Many of these systems are already in modern vehicles, where radar and similar technologies help in functionality.As far as the potential for hacking is concerned, the NHTSA stated V2V data transmitted would only be used in enhancing driver safety, with “several layers” of protection keeping hackers at bay. In turn, the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers said in a statement that the Federal Communications Commission should reserve certain frequencies for V2V communication in the early phases of development “until it is definitively established that sharing will not interfere with the safety of the driving public.”In addition to V2V, vehicle-to-infrastructure communication is in the proposal, allowing for vehicles to talk to roads and other pieces of infrastructure for safety purposes.The proposal is set to make its run toward becoming law beginning in 2016 at the earliest.