Is Mazda saying bye-bye to zoom-zoom?

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Without exception, car makers like to sell their wares by using the phrase: “fun to drive.” Yet behind the scenes, a lot of them are working on turning the driver into a passenger behind the wheel.

Take zoom-zooming Mazda, for example. Its ASV-4 (advanced safety vehicle) has been out on public roads around the company’s Hiroshima HQ. Well really, two of them are probably in use, because Mazda is testing a vehicle-to-vehicle communications system that alerts oncoming drivers at blind intersections or on twisting roads where visibility is limited.

This system aims to prevent (or at least lessen the severity of) two-vehicle collisions, including rear-enders. Not only can one car ‘talk’ to another. If the rear vehicle monitoring system (using radar) detects another car approaching from behind at speed, it can apply that vehicle’s brakes.

This is all part of a larger program called the Intelligent Transport System (ITS) that uses telecommunications technology to create an information network between people, vehicles and the road infrastructure. Sensors along roadways can link to vehicles (known as road-to-vehicle communications), warning of potentially dangerous situations that a driver cannot yet see.

While this is obviously good news from the safety and traffic jam points of view, the Big Brother implications could be far-reaching, such as controlling everyone’s speed -- and no one could complain about saving lives, grief and gas there. But would the fun factor (which doesn’t have to be in conflict with responsible driving) need to be quashed completely?

-- Colin Ryan