Cars communicating with other cars and the road may sound like futuristic technology, but your Allentown auto dealers want to discuss it because it isn’t as far away as you may think.
The Michigan International Speedway has offered its track to automakers so they can test new communication technology that would “allow cars to talk to the road and each other so they become incapable of crashing into one another,” according to this article in the Detroit News. The new technology would prevent about 44,000 traffic-related deaths each year. If auto collisions were prevented, it would also eliminate traffic congestion and create safer roadways all around. Others are happy that the new technology would create about 40,000 jobs in Michigan and once again make the struggling state the centerpiece of the auto industry.
The new initiative, dubbed “Connected Vehicles,” promotes that technology that would install “on-board devices allowing them to know the location of all vehicles in their proximity, and to detect such things as a red light at the next intersection, creating a network of vehicles that refuse to crash,” explained Greg Krueger, the program manager for MDOT’s Intelligent Transportation System office in Lansing.
I remember when the days of self-driving cars were pure fantasy. But with this technology, I may just see that happen before I even retire! Your Lansdale area Hyundai dealer will likely have this type of technology soon after it is available in new models. How exciting would that be?