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The Age of the Connected Car Will Bring New Safety, Comfort – and Threats
How do you reduce the number of highway accidents? Just tell all the cars to look out for each other.
As far out as that may sound, that’s exactly what the National Transportation Safety Board recommended this week, following a fatal bus crash, and it’s part of a fundamental shift in the automotive world.
Cars are already equipped with cutting-edge innovations such as accident-avoidance lasers and smart parking. Soon, they’ll get wireless car-to-car communications, and even city-wide traffic control. And while most of these innovations will steer us to safer roads, they also raise some concerns over privacy and security the likes of which the century-old auto industry has never seen.
“It’s clear the next few years will see greater expansion of in-car infotainment and navigation offerings, and technologies requiring communication between cars,” Ray Wert, former editor-in-chief of the Jalopnik car blog, told NBC News.