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Government To Require Vehicle-to-vehicle Communication
An anonymous reader writes "For decades, the focus of auto safety has primarily been on surviving the traumatic impact of crashes through features like air bags and seat belts. But now the focus has shifted to avoiding crashes by developing technology to make future vehicles 'smart' enough to detect and respond to threats, such as an oncoming vehicle. The technology, known as 'vehicle-to-vehicle,' or "V2V," lets cars 'talk' to each other and exchange safety data, such as speed and position. If a nearby car abruptly changes lanes and moves into another car's blind spot, the car would be alerted. Federal transportation officials did not announce when the new regulations would go into effect but said they hope to propose the new V2V rules before President Barack Obama leaves office in January 2017." Combine this with remote kill-switches or pulse guns, Amber-alert scrolling signs, proliferating cameras, automatic plate recognition and unstoppable text messages from on high for some not-so-distant driving dystopia.
"To require" and "to propose" are two different things.
This will make people worse drivers. How about a car that notices the driver not paying attention and and gives them a mild electric shock.
This does the opposite.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Unless they also mandate good levels of security for these systems, it will end in tears.
So all I have to do is alter my car so that it tells the other cars that I am approaching from behind at 120 mph when I'm really only driving 60 mph and the cars in front of me will automatically swerve out of my way! Awesome!
-Glires
Security. HEH!
Nonono. These systems are going to be minimally guarded (if at all). Simply because putting in a secure system is pretty much beyond these people.
I can see someone breaking into these systems with minimal effort and causing accidents pretty much at will.
I can see brisk business in after-market spygear removal packages...
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Take note that the government isn't requiring the communication be secure from hacking, spoofing, or eavesdropping.
I can see this as another police tactic, where they can force your car to stop by spoofing that it's about to be rammed from all directions by other cars.
Of course, this presents a wide range of hilarious opportunities for hackers!
The future is apparently bridges that ask how fast cars are going so speeding tickets can be automatically issued.
Sounds awesome - for those of us that have the technical ability to disable the chatter.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Until someone sends every car a rogue "Look out you're about to crash!" signal, and every car hits the brakes as hard as they can. Then you get to find who has sub-par brakes, and who doesn't have a smart vehicle yet (or maybe who circumvented it).
Would emergency vehicles have this as well? I can see not implementing it in police vehicles (might need to ram, or otherwise contact another vehicle in the course of duty), or Fire or EMS vehicle. They would then be susceptible to this sort of thing (when the car in front gets the rogue signal, not them).
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Or you could combine this with smarter power grids, EV technology, improved image recognition, and automated driver technology for some not-so-distant driving utopia.
Technology isn't good or bad. It's all about how it's used. This is just as much the technology that can build a utopia as it is a dystopia, but if we always act solely in fear of the dystopia we'll simply be stagnant forever.
Some people look at this and say "hmm, could I cause the car in front of me to have an accident". I look at this and say "hmm, could I make the grandma in front of me get out of the fucking left lane".
Societally, I'm glad to have us focusing on improving safety and efficiency of transportation.
Think past the automobile era.
Human drivers are notoriously unreliable
Yeah, they're always doing unreliable things like going to places where their government hasn't authorized them to go.
For now.
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
Will the next step will be regulated departure time? For the greater good a decision will be made when you can stay and when you can leave your home. We all know that late departure causes drivers to be aggressive and irritated, causes excessive speeding and other unacceptable behavior. Here is how this will work. Drivers will get the allotted time for departure, for example, between 7:30 AM and 7:40 AM. If you are late to start driving at that time your car will notify you to stay in the garage, because of the traffic jam or other traffic hazards your car will be creating. You will have alternative to leave home at the premium tax rate, though. Now that your departure time slot has been assigned and established, your smart home will automatically wake you up at 6:30 AM and monitor your movement to be sure you are on schedule, unless you have applied for a morning sex time with your wife. Unscheduled fornication will automatically raise your healthcare premium due to the higher risk of unsanctioned pregnancy.
This will prevent people from driving at a high rate of speed in the left lane, slamming on the brakes and swerving into the right lane just so they don't have to wait in line like everyone else or because they wanted to get one car ahead.
This will never fly because it's everyone's right to drive like they want.
If I want to drive on the sidewalk, it's my right!
P.S. I am completely and unequivocally opposed to this nonsensical crap being mandated for cars. If you can't pay attention to where you're driving, you shouldn't be driving. We need to stop coddling people and let them find out the hard way why rules of the road and safe driving methods exist.
That implies the only ones getting harmed from unsafe drivers are the unsafe drivers themselves.
Not saying I'm in favor of this either though.
In the context of automated driving this pairs beautifully. The future is very much having computers drive us, it simply is more efficient and much safer. Giving them extra tools to enhance safety is great considering we aren't concerned about being liable for what the computer decides to do (since that is the liability of the manufacturer).
So when someone who is obeying the rules of the road gets killed by some idiot who isn't, are you suggesting your right to be a moron extends to the point where you could cause harm to someone else?
Your 'right' to drive how you see fit ends where the potential for you to damage me begins.
Your right of free expression ends at my nose. And your right to drive like an asshole ends at the point where there are other people on the road who could harmed by your stupidity.
You want an unrestricted right to drive that way? Drive on your own damned property. Once you're out on public roads with other people, you do NOT have the right to just drive however you like.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
I think this is a great idea. For all the articles about self-driving cars, this is obviously the first step to make this happen. It's much easier and more reliable than object detection. My only concern would be security lest some hacker starts blasting bad telemetry data.
Queue hackers in 3.... 2.... 1....
Seriously, they *will* be out there blasting bad telemetry, either on purpose (by hacking) or by malfunction. You can count on that. So everybody will have to take any information gleaned from such sources with a huge grain of salt unless it can be independently verified.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
You know, I have no great love for government regulation, but I have even less love for "how much tinfoil can I wrap around my head and still manage to cram it up my backside" paranoia.
At its peak during the 1960s and 1970s, the motor-vehicle death rate in the US topped 50,000 per year. It's come down a bit since then -- but the fatalities per mile have decreased almost fivefold.
Now, perhaps that decrease has come in spite of things like seat-belts (and laws mandating their use), crumple zones, air bags, anti-lock brakes, and so forth. If only Evil Government Regulators had refrained from slapping the Free Market's Invisible Hand, perhaps most of those hundreds of thousands of crash victims would still be alive today -- thrown to safety, no doubt, instead of being trapped by those murderous belts.
But it seems to me that safety regulations have brought us, well, quite a bit more than "a little temporary safety", and I honestly don't see that they've cost me any "essential liberties". These regulations take place on a slope that hasn't proven all that slippery, and the prospect of more regulations frankly does not fill me with dread.
We can build systems that react more quickly and consistently than any human. Every year's technological advances expand the domains in which we can do this. If we can use such systems to prevent unnecessary death and suffering, LET'S GET ON WITH IT.
So I'm actually working on this technology, and every time I see an article about this, there's inevitably some concern about safety, security, government spying, etc.
First off, the reason this technology would be required in all vehicles is that it essentially consists of in-car wifi routers that send their GPS location to other cars. In order for the technology to work properly, all cars would need it, so they can all see each other. Obviously it's a big transition, but it has to be done eventually. New cars would come with the devices built in, and older cars would have after-market devices that can be purchased and installed. However, once in place, vehicle awareness will greatly reduce accidents and increase roadside efficiency. (Think of it this way; The traffic signals are almost always green when you approach an intersection.)
But wouldn't all that be pretty expensive? Not really. The core technology is pretty basic stuff. It's just gps and wifi, really. The fancy stuff, like in-car radar, video cameras, and so forth that you find in some of the luxury cars today isn't really necessary, though from what I gather, it could be plugged in to augment the system. For the most part, consumers won't notice a price change, and in the worst case, they'd have to spend a couple hundred to retrofit their old cars.
All fine and dandy, but what about hackers and people that would abuse the tech? Well, the system is being designed from the ground up to be heavily encrypted and secure. One of the government requirements for the companies developing this is that it meet certain security standards, and since this stuff is used to keep people from dying, you can bet testing will involve trying to exploit every aspect of it. The only issue I can see is malicious signal jamming, though since it requires a unique frequency, people doing this would be caught pretty easily.
Finally, we get to the issue of government spying. Since every vehicle is transmitting its location, doesn't this mean that the government could track everybody, or gather other information about them? This is actually very unlikely. The development of V2V tech has been fairly hands-off on the government's part. Their primary contribution has been to lay down certain standards and requirements for the tech, and then let the commercial companies implement it. One of their requirements has been that none of the data can be used to identify any vehicle in any way, which has certainly been a challenge to implement from the development side.
And to add my own anecdotal evidence, I've looked through all of the code used, from the firmware to the utilities, and I've seen nothing that could be used as a backdoor to get the information. Likewise, I've worked extensively with the hardware and done all kinds of signal analysis, and as far as I can see, there's nothing illicit on the hardware end either.
And don't forget, the V2V tech isn't only being implemented in the US, but Japan, Europe, and China as well. (To the best of my knowledge.) A lot of the hardware and software is shared between the companies working on it and they all have to fit a certain standard.
In any case, I'm sure few people will be placated by my explanation, but I myself would not be averse to having this system installed in my own car.
Like back in the seventies - L.A.P.D. got a fleet of fifty brand new vehicles, I forget which model of Ford they were. First cop to catch a speeder in one of the new souped up cruisers stomps the gas, accelerates almost instantly to the vehicles maximum governed speed of 55mph, and watches his quota for the month go bye-bye. But the officer was safe at all times, the vehicle prevented him from placing himself in unnecessary danger by enforcing his compliance with the very laws he was supposed to be enforcing. That's good, right?
So, you suggest you can drive dangerously in a school zone, pass illegally, and do all sorts of things ... and until you actually kill someone there's no crime?
Sorry, but the reason we have drivers licenses and laws for drivers is because enough drivers have demonstrated themselves to be incompetent that the default position has to be "you may believe you can do this, but statistics say you can't, and you'll end up killing someone, so before that happens we've made it illegal".
The assertion you should be able to drive however you like right up to the point you actually kill someone is basically saying "waah, but I'm special and can do it safely". And as soon as you get demonstrated to be wrong, someone else ends up dead, and everyone remembers why we had the law in the first place.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Only the Fox/Koch echo chamber is saying that. What he actually said is "I call upon congress to act responsibly. If they will not act, I will do everything I can within my power to move us forward."
in other words, do your job congress- but I have no faith you will so I will make what changes I can within the limits of my power to move our economy along.