No Stupid Questions

CB Radio was big in the 70's.

Many people would use such a method to troll and be disruptive, possibly causing collisions

It's called a CB radio. Enjoy.

CB radio was briefly very popular in the US in the 1970s. But the fad quickly died out among passenger car drivers, and now with cell phones, few truck drivers use it anymore. It’s mainly used to harass people.

Similarly, for a short time Airdropping on iPhones was always-on. It was mainly used to harass people.

A touch screen interface in a car is a TERRIBLE idea. Yeah a passenger could do it but only if there is a passenger in the car in the first place.

"sir they're hailing us!"

"Thanks wife, put them through."

"HEY FUCKER YOU DIDNT SIGNAL"

* my bad hand wave *

That sounds awful. But it does exist, its called a cb radio

CB radio? That shit is for truckers and nerds but it was solid.

Yeah no people are trash on average, I don't want to get constantly pinged by trashy people while driving, I don't even like proximity chat in games, imagine having that in real life, there's a high chance of accidents happening due to distraction. Now if someone wants to add a little display on their car that can display some basic text messages, maybe that could be of some use

CB radio still exists.

Yeah, let's add proximity chat to traffic. It'll be great!

This is what CB Radios are, and many more people used to have them before cell phones.

People in mountainous areas where a cell phone is useless still do.

Bruh that's just multiplayer game voice chat IRL. Imagine chaos and trolling.

In the eighties when cell phones started being installed in cars, some people posted their phone numbers on their back or side window. That didn't last long.

Because

1. Road rage is bad enough, and-
2. Americans still exist, which is why
3. We can’t have nice things.

Road rage.

Here in South Korea every car has the phone number of the owner displayed through the windshield so you can always call them when they parked false or so.

Lady honked at me the other day for not turning left at a light (she obviously didn’t see the motorcyclists) and began making rude gestures.

Well anyway it’s probably better that we can’t talk to each other.

Have you seen the movie Serenity? When they're out in Reaver space, remember the radio chatter?

That's what it would sound like.

It's not a bad idea, but there are plenty of countries where it would be abused to xbox live chat levels.

Honking IS how you contact nearby vehicles.

I used to have a cat that loved to jump up under any truck that would be delivering something. We used to tell them not to leave until we had eyes on our cat. Even with that, he was such a varmint that I'd give them my business card, and tell them that if they got to their next delivery, and found him in their truck, to call me, and I'll come get him.

Luckily, our precautions worked, but he was a troublemaker.

I absolutely would not want an open channel to everyone around me. The potential for abuse is too high.

Imagine the giant trucks road raging because you’re in the left lane and only going +20 the speed limit. Or the old creeps hitting on teenagers.

And then there’s the privacy concerns. In order to connect to your car-specifically- it has to know your car is there. Which means your car is constantly putting out a beacon. This would be similar to how cell phones work - and are now being used by merchants and advertisers like Walmart to track where you go in stores.

And then there’s the security concerns of people pushing malware.

And then there’s the question of distractions from having to respond to people reaching out or shutting them up or whatever.

We do...?

It's called a CB radio. Though usually it's only semi-trucks and enthusiasts that use 'em. It would be pretty awesome if they were just a standard feature, tho.

They do. Some people poat their radio frequency their car.

You could publish you phone number right on your car. See how it goes.

I do a lot of water sports in the UK and we use VHF radios. Certain frequencies are used by marinas and the like, and nearby boats will be tuned into them. Then there is a frequency used for emergency calls - the coastguard listens on that and answers, and will move your call to another frequency for more details, leaving the mayday one open again.

We mainly use VHF for boat-to-boat comms, or boat-to-shore. The local range is decent - a few miles from our base, depending on atmospheric conditions, obstacles etc. I honestly have no idea if you could use VHF radios between cars though. It's not private for a start - everyone can hear you - and once someone is yammering on the marina frequency no-one else can transmit. So it's just brief messages with protocols.

This might shock you but I dont want nearby people to be able to talk to me. Chicken or not.

This is actually being worked on. Researchers are looking at adding a 4th light to stop lights. When enough “smart” cars get into the area they will talk to each other and the stop light to help control the flow of traffic. The 4th light is to tell you that is happening. When the cars leave the area, the turns off, and the light goes back to normal control mechanisms.

fictional spaceships have advanced sensors,manuverability, and subspace communication. cars dont have that capability.

Dude, people can't handle the complexity of simply driving the vehicle as it is. Bad things happen when adding handling dynamic communications into the mix with people who aren't trained to the level of combat pilots. That's why we don't let people juggle a cell phone while driving.