Ready For V2V?

Are you familiar with what's called 'V2V'?  It's Vehicle-to-Vehicle communication.  A new technology that allows cars and trucks to actually communicate, within a given area in traffic.  Each vehicle would broadcast it's speed and other pertinent info, making it easier to avoid collisions.  In a panic stop, for example, it would alert other vehicles in the area, making it less likely you'd be rear-ended.  Sounds pretty slick, doesn't it?

This technology has been under development for years by the car makers.  It can also be used to interact with street signs, school zones, traffic signals... you get the idea.  Would you like your car to react automatically when things unexpected happen? 

I think there's good and bad in this, like almost everything, I guess.  It'd be the black box in your car, similar to what commercial airliners have, to take the 'he said, she said' out of accidents.  No doubt insurance companies love this idea and maybe you could get a discount if you had one.  Wonder if it would help the slow-Joe going 15 mph under the speed limit or the guy poking along in the fast lane?

The actual box is about the size of a pack of cigarettes and I'm told older cars could be easily retro-fitted with the V2V device.

Police could use the info in surveillance and pull-over commands, to name a few.  Hmmm... Are you willing to relinquish some control of the car you're driving?  Ford's vice president of research and engineering, Paul Mascarenas stated, "The day is not far off when our vehicles will operate like mobile devices with four wheels, constantly exchanging information and communicating with our environment to do things like shorten commute times, improve fuel economy and generally help us more easily navigate life on the road."

Predictions are, we'd see a huge drop in non-alcohol related crashes with this technology on-board and that's hard to argue against.

So why do I still have reservations about a fantastic little box in my car?