It was as big an announcement as Detroit’s famed auto show had seen in the 29 years since it officially became “international.” Oh, there were hints in President Barack Obama’s January 12th State of the Union speech that something big in the automotive world was coming our way, but when Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx announced on January 14th that the U.S. government was committing US$4-billion “to accelerate the development and adoption of safe vehicle automation,” one could literally feel the dawning of a new era. The auto industry was finally unshackled to develop self-driving cars — every automaker will be allowed to license 2,500 self-driving cars that would otherwise violate current U.S. safety regulations — which could have, according to Foxx’s self-proclaimed simple math, “saved 25,000 lives last year.”

But, here’s the thing: Although self-driving cars will indeed be a boon to driver convenience and will most definitely save lives, it is inter-vehicle communication — vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) in geek-speak — that may prove to be an even greater safety boon, whether it is combined with autonomous driving or simply applied to cars driven by we humans.

Understand this: Self-driving cars may be enormously smart, imbued as they are with myriad sensors and enough computing power to both filter through traffic or rocket around racetracks — Audi’s RS7, nicknamed “Robby,” trumping experienced road racers on circuits around the world. But they are incredibly short-sighted, can’t see much farther than the car directly ahead of them and, much more importantly, lack even the most rudimentary communication skills.

A Google car, for instance, can most definitely “see” the car ahead brake suddenly. But it can’t “anticipate” that some dozy driver is going to run a red light and schmuck it amidships. A Tesla Model S may indeed be able to pass slower-moving traffic on the highway by “automatically” moving into the fast lane. But it doesn’t know that the car ahead is about to do a left-hand turn right in front of it. All the high-powered sensors in the world married to the most advanced automatic braking system won’t prevent a head-on collision if some bonehead decides to turn right in front of you.

That’s where vehicle-to-vehicle communication comes in. By knowing what every other car is doing, or thinking about doing, your car can take preventative action even before you — or, if it’s an autonomous vehicle, it — sees what’s happening. By communicating with every car in the immediate vicinity, for instance, your car would know that said dozy driver is approaching his red light at more than 60 km/h and hasn’t even begun to apply the brakes yet. Your car would also, because it is registering the facing car’s left-turn signal, know that the car ahead is planning to cross your path. Indeed, even if the driver is beyond bone-headed and attempts a last-minute dive across your path without signaling his daring move, your car, in constant communication with his, will sense that he is turning his steering wheel into your path. Indeed, so powerful are these simple V2V communications — Left Turn Assist (LTA) and Intersection Movement Assist (IMA) in NHTSA vernacular — that Foxx says they alone could prevent up to 592,000 collisions every year in the United States.

The technology that allows these warnings is a more robust version of the Wi-Fi called DSRC (Dedicated Short Range Communication) that is dedicated to inter-car communication and has a range of about a kilometre. Essential to V2V’s success is that each car communicates directly with its counterpart rather than via the cellular-accessed “cloud,” which could delay reaction times by as much as 10 seconds. And to prevent the system from being overwhelmed by the hundreds of cars that might be within range, the system “focuses on the most important six or eight vehicles around you,” Debra Bezzina, a senior program manager at the University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute, told Car and Driver.

She ought to know, as the University of Michigan undertook the world’s most comprehensive V2V experiment, mixing some 3,000 V2V-equipped cars, commercial trucks and transit buses with regular traffic. Interestingly, only 64 had fully-communicating V2V systems, the remainder having transmission-only devices. Despite their inability to warn their drivers, even such rudimentary aftermarket outbound-only systems could prove a boon to the most vulnerable of vehicles (motorcycles, for instance, since so many car drivers find them “invisible”).

Currently, V2V safety systems simply alert their drivers of impending danger using warning lights, audible alerts and even by shaking the driver’s seat. In an even semi-autonomous future, however, vehicles may be able to automatically brake for such emergencies, eliminating the need for a quick reaction from the driver.

Vehicle-to-vehicle communication will not be the only safety information broadcasted. Although vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communication has been heretofore promoted for its ability to reduce traffic congestion, highways could, in the future, alert cars of slippery road conditions. Imagine V2V and V2I working together: The first car approaching a slippery section of road is warned to reduce its speed. If it doesn’t slow enough and it ends up in the ditch, then V2V takes over, alerting subsequent cars that they need to slow down even more. The dreaded pileup, like the one that scattered 50 cars across Michigan’s US 131 last December 18th, would be a thing of the past.

Communication, they say, is the glue that holds us all together. It is the source — I’ll have to take this as gospel — of successful relationships, it fosters the best work-place environments and, it may even, if a recent medical discovery about inter-cellular discourse bears any credence at all, prove the future cure for all cancers (in failing to communicate with other cells in your organs, claims a recent study, the directionless orphaned cell feels free to mutate in malignant neoplasm). In the automotive world, enhanced communication might even stop us from mowing each other down like bowling pins.

Cadillac and Mercedes-Benz are rumoured to have cars with onboard V2V technology ready for the 2017 model year. Although they will undoubtedly have some autonomous features, both will still require a driver behind the wheel.