Car-to-Car Communication

           Over the last decade there has been a tremendous amount of new advances in information technology that have had a huge impact on everyday life and business. According to US News, in an article called “Car-to-Car Communication May Hit Roads Soon” there is a new form of information technology that could be surfacing soon. General Motors is the first major company to commit to V2V’s new technology that now enables vehicle-to-vehicle communication. With this technology vehicles will be able to notify other vehicles when they are approaching, if the vehicle is about to crash, or just give another vehicle a warning if they are too close. When one vehicle notifies the other vehicle the car may say “vehicle approaching” or shake the seat of the driver to prompt them to step on the brake.

            This technology is able to transmit data and information from one vehicle to another and notify the driver. One of the most important facts about this technology is the fact that this new information could save a lot of lives. The article even states “After analyzing data from the pilot program, NHTSA estimated that V2V technology could prevent more than half a million accidents and save more than 1,000 lives each year if implemented across the United States”. This is huge in the information technology world because although self-driving vehicles have been in the news lately they are still very far from hitting the market. So the idea of a technology that would allow vehicles to communicate with one another is unique but could reach market very quickly.

Something that individuals may not realize at first glance is that V2V’s new technology could have a large impact on businesses as well. There have been a large number of accidents that have occurred with trucks and different modes of transportation for both large and small businesses. With this technology it could allow drivers of large trucks who may not be able to see as well to be notified when someone is approaching. This would prevent accidents, lawsuits, and could potentially decrease delivery time from one site to another.

Additionally, this pilot system would be a very efficient system that could be in millions of cars. The reason being that this system can’t work with just one company or one brand of car. For this technology to communicate in the way it is supposed to then this system would have to be in all types and brand of cars. The article even states “It's really been a unique kind of collaboration where normal competitors have said, 'None of us can do this on our own, and we want to work together to bring this to deployment’”.
            Three things that I think the article overlooked but I feel are important to understand are the fact that there could be errors in the technology, these errors could cause accidents, and also the fact that this small amount of new technology could lead to even bigger and more impactful things in the workplace.

Original Article:

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015/03/04/car-to-car-communication-may-hit-roads-soon