New safety jacket: Cars that talk to one another

NO MORE ON COLLISION COURSE

Coming soon: “Talking” cars, say Italian scientists who claim to have developed a software to lets vehicles “communicate” with one another.

 

    A team at University of Bologna says that the so-called talking cars wouldn’t even require human-like facial features to communicate with another vehicle on the road, the BBC reported. Similar technology had been used before but this time, cars would be able to “know” what had happened even kilometres ahead. And tests suggest it could reduce motorway pile-ups by 40 %, say the scientists. 
    Team leader Prof Marco Roccetti said the system they had developed was different from conventional telematics that sees a radar-type mechanism detect an obstacle on the road in front of a car, which then brakes to avoid a crash. 
    “By letting cars ‘talk’ to each other, we can see what happens kilometres ahead — whereas current technology, instead, allows cars to perceive an obstacle only when it is physically in front of them,” said team member Gustavo Marfia. The “talking” is done via acceleration sensors built into cars that trigger an alarm message in abnormal conditions such as when a vehicle is in acrash. When a car in an accident experiences a change in acceleration, it would be captured by the sensor and alert cars approaching. PTI