The U.S. Department of Transportation's (U.S. DOT) National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) released an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) and a supporting comprehensive research report on vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communications technology.

The report will include analysis of the U.S. DOT's research findings in several key areas including technical feasibility, privacy and security, and preliminary estimates on costs and safety benefits, while the ANPRM seeks public input on these findings to support the department’s regulatory work to eventually require V2V devices in new light vehicles.

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The report includes preliminary estimates of safety benefits that show two safety applications — Left Turn Assist (LTA) and Intersection Movement Assist (IMA) — could prevent up to 592,000 crashes and save 1,083 lives saved per year. Put another way, V2V technology could help drivers avoid more than half of these types of crashes that would otherwise occur by providing advance warning.

LTA warns drivers not to turn left in front of another vehicle traveling in the opposite direction and IMA warns them if it is not safe to enter an intersection due to a high probability of colliding with one or more vehicles.

Additional applications could also help drivers avoid imminent danger through forward collision, blind spot, do not pass, and stop light/stop sign warnings.

The accompanying ANPRM will help U.S. DOT and NHTSA gather significant input from the public and stakeholders as NHTSA works to deliver a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking by 2016.