Volvo, Mercedes, BMW and Ford have joined forces for a European safety project that will see cars from the four companies share anonymised road safety data with each other.

The initiative will see cars send alerts to a cloud database that is accessible to all members of the scheme, enabling safety data collected by a BMW, for example, to be accessed by a following Mercedes.

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In practice, this means that when a driver activates their hazard warning lights, or makes an emergency call via eCall, this information will be sent anonymously to a cloud server before being relayed to the infotainment systems of other vehicles in the vicinity.

BMW will be the first company to make its safety data freely accessible, confirming that customer's cars will ask them if they want to share anonymous data from 1 July, though BMW and MINI owners will be able to opt out of the scheme at any time. The firm says its cars will be able to send out warnings for broken-down vehicles, poor visibility and wet or icy roads and that “going forward, every BMW and MINI driver who provides anonymised data will be helping improve overall road safety.”