After both real-world and controlled testing, the United States Department of Transportation and NHTSA announced on Monday, February 3, 2014, that they will move forward with proposed regulations to require future light automobiles to be equipped with vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication technology. With the announcement, the US DOT and NHTSA hopes to spur the industry to enhance the development of this technology.

Vehicle-to-vehicle communication will enable cars to communicate with each other about their speed, direction, and position, to help warn drivers about a potential collision. The proposed technology will not control the vehicle in any way, such as automatically applying the vehicle’s brakes if it detects a potential collision, but will merely warn the driver. V2V technology will be able to detect unseen threats hundreds of yards away, which is different than current on board safety technology that can stop a low speed car to prevent a rear-end collision, warns the driver of the presence of a vehicle to the side, or warns a driver of objects when backing up. V2V technology is also anticipated to also help increase fuel efficiency and save time. The promise of V2V communication technology is exciting and its applications likely have numerous benefits.

Although V2V technology does not pretend to be able to prevent all car collisions, there may be some other unintended consequences to think about that may detract from its promise. Such as, will this technology give drivers a false sense of security, and cause them to take their eyes of the road more often or take greater risks in the absence of a warning? The law will only apply to new vehicles in the future, so there will likely still be older vehicles without this technology for some time, and it does not apply to vehicles like tractor trailers. Also, this technology does not warn drivers about other dangerous situations on the road like ice, pedestrians, or bicyclists. There are also potential legal liability questions that may need to be answered due to this technology, such as, what happens if a driver who has the right-of-way and sees no problem, ignores the warning, and an accident ensues? Would that change their liability? States will likely need to address this in the future. Regardless, drivers will still have to remember that V2V technology is not a substitute for keeping a proper lookout for others on the road.

To read the press releases and learn more go to the U.S. Department of Transportation announcement at V2V: Cars Communicating to Prevent Crashes, Deaths, Injuries, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announcement at US DOT Announces Decision to Move Forward with Vehicle-to-Vehicle Communication Technology for Light Vehicles, or to learn more about how V2V works go to Vehicle-to-Vechile Communications.