Proposed Safety Regulations To Impact Autonomous Vehicle Market

The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) proposed new safety regulations that got very little coverage; perhaps because the proposed rule came out on December 13th just before the yearend holidays. These regulations would use a new technology – vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) radio communications – that would allow vehicles to automatically send vehicle sensor data – the vehicle's speed, heading, brake status and other information – to other vehicles to alert drivers to potential crash situations. This is interesting technology that could impact the speed with which autonomous vehicles become viable. That is because the chief impediment to the viability of autonomous vehicles are fears that they are not safe enough. There are already advanced crash avoidance technologies available that employ on-board sensor technologies - such as vehicle camera systems, RADAR, and LIDAR - to monitor a vehicles' surroundings.