Imagine being stopped at a busy intersection. It looks clear to safely make a left turn. You pull out, then CRASH. From seemingly nowhere, a speeding car rams into you. This situation happens everyday in cities across America, but there is emerging technology that could make this a rare occurrence.

So, let’s imagine the scenario again. This time you hear a beep and see a red light on the dash warning that a car is rapidly approaching and you won’t be able to safely turn. You remain at the stop sign, wait until the vehicle passes, and then proceed when it’s safe to do so, thereby avoiding a potential crash. Sounds like science fiction? It’s not, and this technology is closer to reality than you think.

Vehicle-to-vehicle communication is considered the next step in vehicle safety according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and has the potential to affect 80 percent of vehicle crashes on the road. Using wireless technology embedded in a vehicle, it sends safety messages to other cars on the road to provide information on speed, direction, and location to help avoid crashes.

A number of high-end cars already use radar and cameras in their pre-collision systems, but those can only alert drivers of hazards within close proximity. This new technology can reach 360 degrees around a vehicle and look beyond adjacent cars to “see” potential dangers obscured from the driver’s view. The good news is that this technology is relatively inexpensive to install, and with a deployment strategy and industry commitment, it can reach all vehicles on the road.

“In the past it’s always been the Cadillacs and the premium cars–the Mercedes–that get all the fancy gadgets and information about things happening on the road. Most people don’t drive high-end cars. The real opportunity is to get this down into the mass market where all your volume cars could have this safety technology. That’s where you get the real bang for the buck on addressing the crash problem,” says Don Grimm, senior researcher, General Motor’s Perception and Vehicle Control Systems Group.

When can we see this feature in our cars?
NHTSA has been testing in-car consumer acceptance. With the help of the University of Michigan, the agency will look at every day real-world scenarios starting this summer. After compiling all the data, NHTSA will determine if there is enough research and data to mandate the technology in all new cars. Consumer Reports believes the potential safety benefits of this technology make it worth pursuing, but motorists still need to drive responsibly and pay attention to the road.

See our full report “Stopping crashes with smarter cars” for more on the benefits and possible road blocks with new vehicle safety technology.

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