"Commence vehicle search" said Michael into his headset.
"Vehicle search complete" announced a pleasantly modulated voice through his earpiece. "Please state vehicle registration for voice recognition."
"L..D..A" began Michael.
"Unique match identified - WiFi network broadcasting SSID LDA... identified." interrupted the voice. "Waiting...establishing Bluetooth connection...other driver accepted...setting up VoIP conversation...."

"Hello?"
"Hi, this is Michael"
"Hi Michael, what can I do for you?"
"Your exhaust is hanging off and...wait for it...your engine compartment's on fire."
"Again? Oh man! Well, thanks for the heads up."
"My pleasure, see you round."

Michael sped off into the distance, content in the knowledge that one man *can* make a difference.
-- DocBrown, Jul 27 2005

Inter-car communication Inter-car_20communication
Related idea [hippo, Jul 27 2005]

Similar but simpler.... Infrared_20Voice_20Hailing_20Device
Found this one in the archives, I think the mechanism and feature sets are sufficiently different to justify coexistence. [DocBrown, Jul 27 2005]

This is a really good idea but could be misused so horribly. [+] anyway.
-- pooduck, Jul 27 2005


Add it to the list unfortunately [pooduck]: fire, drugs, kitchen knives, really sharp bits of Lego....
-- DocBrown, Jul 27 2005


Those were really good ideas too!
-- pooduck, Jul 27 2005


Car-to-car messaging is so often a repeated posting here, you would think some manufacturer would have hit on it by now.
-- DrCurry, Jul 27 2005


Yes indeed [DrC]. Interesting to read all the different takes on achieving it too - there's no shortage of potential implementations. I suppose the difficult bit is agreeing a standard between manufacturers.
-- DocBrown, Jul 27 2005


Could make the commute less dull...if you're the type that likes to talk to other people.

I can see some sort of service wherein a license plate number is associated with a cell phone number. Speed dial the service, enter the license number, ring the phone of the driver. Plenty of issues, but uses only existing standards. [Legal Disclaimer: To be used only with hands free cell phones.]
-- half, Jul 27 2005


I suspect that the opportunites for massive abuse are probably why it hasn't been implemented yet. Road rage would be so much more satsifying if the other person could actually hear you, wouldn't it? I won't bone it, coz... no, actually, I will, just to indicate there's a downside. Anyway, accidents happen when people use mobile phones, whether or not that are hands-free.
-- moomintroll, Jul 27 2005


I suppose the idea is dependent to an extent on the essential decency of people, but you do have the option to ignore incoming communication which isn't so easy with that standard workhorse of road rage, the horn. I'd like to think it's going to be fairly clear if an incoming call is likely to be abuse by the circumstance you receive it in, but it's true this might not always be the case.
-- DocBrown, Jul 27 2005



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