Going Forward - GPS Declassified: From Smart Bombs to Smartphones - page 197

accelerating to beat a red light at a cross street, her car will warn her. 104 The
government could mandate v2v technology in new cars as soon as 2017, though
it would be years before most vehicles on the road have it. 105
The possible changes wrought by two-way communications between vehi-
cles and infrastructure are profound. Many traffic signals are already equipped
to turn green when prompted by emergency vehicle transponders. Suppose
traffic signals sent vehicles messages about the time remaining for a green
light, as many crosswalk signs already do for pedestrians. Taken a step further,
they could automatically alert or slow down vehicles if drivers failed to notice
a red light. Many police departments now use portable digital signs with radar
guns that flash the speed of oncoming cars, and most drivers voluntarily slow
down. Once cars are suitably equipped, police could potentially use v2i com-
munication to slow a vehicle down to the posted limit—or to send a citation.
Such communications do not require gps, but some transportation theorists
envision large-scale vehicular traffic management akin to air traffic control. A
team of transportation and computer science researchers from Rutgers Uni-
versity, the University of California at Los Angeles, and the University of Cal-
ifornia at Berkeley has proposed a concept called “active highways” to manage
traffic congestion the way computer networks handle large volumes of data. 106
Drivers enter the system using digital tickets, inform the system of travel plans,
reserve slots in high-priority intelligent lanes, and comply with system adjust-
ments designed to route vehicles around problems. This is a long way from a
Sunday drive in the country. With such infrastructure in place, it is not hard to
imagine eventually requiring drivers to relinquish control entirely in high-
traffic areas where the highway management system and cars collaborate—
eliminating unexpected and unsafe movements, speeding, tailgating, and
accidents.
If it sounds farfetched, consider that by summer 2012 Google's experimen-
tal driverless cars surpassed three hundred thousand miles without an acci-
dent, a better record than the average driver, based on Federal Highway
Administration statistics. 107 Nevada, Florida, and California already approved
autonomous cars, and Google is spending millions lobbying other state and
federal oicials. 108 G overnor Jerry Brown rode in a self-driving Prius to Google's
Mountain View headquarters, where he signed the California law in late Sep-
tember 2012. Brown called the technology “science fiction becoming tomor-
row's reality,” and Google cofounder Sergey Brin told reporters, “Self-driving
cars do not run red lights.” 109 Google plans to sell its Driverless Car System, a