RFID for Automobile Tracking

mindless4210 writes "The U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Highway Administration has called on four of the largest RFID manufacturers to jointly develop dedicated short-range communications technology systems for a trial as part of the agency's efforts to cut road fatalities in the U.S. by 50% within 10 years. The DSRC prototype initiative is a prerequisite for introducing new roadway applications such as issuing alerts to drivers about impending intersection collisions, rollovers, weather-related road hazards, or warning a driver that his vehicle is going too fast to safely negotiate an upcoming curve. The FCC allocated the entire 5.9 GHz band to DSRC applications some time ago, making the development much more feasible. Any DRSC system would require DRSC technology to be built into new vehicles."

Comments

The Glass That's Half Full

[ackthpt]

This morning some maniac is shooting down the road. Weaves between cars with about 1 foot clearance, at ~80 MPH. Then comes to an agri truck which is going to slow for him. He passes it on the shoulder, narrowly averting disaster, where the car could have rolled and could have been run over by the larger vehicle.

With driving habits like that it's only a matter of time before someone is injured or killed. I may see one patrol car a week on this long heavily travelled stretch, usually on Friday.

Short of trackng drivers with a satellite the authorities aren't going to know it even happened. Then there's the matter of who was driving the car. Much to my chagrin, after a hit and run, I found the San Jose, CA, police could care less if I have a license number, description of car and could identify the face of the driver. Just fill out the forms and your insurance company will take care of it.

It's hard to feel one way of the other about this. How does John Ashcroft feel about it? I'll probably trend the other way, but I don't think this will solve anything.