Safer driving from cars that gossip with each other

Imagine that your car could learn from an oncoming car that the road ahead is icy or closed by an accident. That technology is now being designed and debated.

Many researchers believe we’re about to enter a new phase in transportation safety. If the last 50 years were about mitigating crashes, in the next 50, technology could enable us to actually avoid them — and revolutionize in the process how we get around using all types of transportation.

The vision is that millions of vehicles on the road will “talk to each other” through a kind of advanced Wi-Fi and this could potentially address 81 percent of the light-vehicle crashes currently involving unimpaired drivers.

The new technology would rely on Dedicated Short-Range Communications, a wireless connection with a 1-mile radius that is both faster and more secure than traditional Wi-Fi.

Vehicles with the technology could communicate with each other in real time about everything from upcoming icy roads to approaching vehicles in a driver’s blind spot. Emergency responders could be notified the moment an airbag deploys.

Instead of waiting to learn about a distant accident through the chain-reaction of brake lights illuminated in front of you, your car could automatically warn you the moment a nearby crash occurs (the system would not, however, push the brakes for you).

No word yet on whether this technology will side with your wife and force you to pull over and ask for directions.