Government Proposes Car-to-Car Signal System To Prevent Crashes

Cars could be talking to each other in the near future.

The federal government is planning to implement a car-to-car communication system that would let vehicles send and receive information, The New York Times reported.

Under the regulations, all new cars would be required to broadcast such data as location, speed and direction to vehicles around them to warn other drivers before collisions happen.

While the new system is still years in the making, the next step for officials is a report from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that should be completed in a few weeks.

The idea could be presented in a more concrete proposed rule as soon as January 2017, before President Obama completes his term, said Anthony Foxx, the transportation secretary.

"A lot of innovation and safety to this point has been about protecting the occupants of a vehicle after an accident occurs," he told reporters, according to the Times. But in the future, technology could make way for a system "in which the safety advances kick in before an accident occurs."

The system, which was proposed by the Transportation Department on Monday, would alert drivers through a display screen, a vibrating steering wheel or sounds. It would be only an advisory system and would not take control of the vehicle, department officials told the Times.

The data would not be collected, and any signals sent out would not identify the driver, according to officials.

Foxx called Monday's announcement a turning point in American transportation similar to the launch of the interstate highway system, The Washington Post reported.

The "connected vehicle technology" could reduce non-alcohol-related crashes by some 80 percent, prevent more than 5 million accidents a year and save around 18,000 lives, Foxx said.

Besides technology hurdles and privacy concerns, another possible obstacle to the system is the airwave bandwidth necessary to transmit signal between cars, something that comes under the jurisdiction of the Federal Communications Commission.

"The automobile manufacturers are working right now with the WiFi industry and the cable industry to look for a sharing protocol," said Scott F. Belcher, president of the Intelligent Transportation Society of America, as quoted by the Post. "If they can agree that the protocol has legs, then it'll have to be tested."