Look who's talking now: your car?

BOULDER - It sounds more like something out of a science fiction book: your car warning you about bad weather ahead as you're driving and suggesting a different route in case there's traffic.

Scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder are working on a project where cars would essentially talk to each other and then to the driver.

"A lot of cars now when you turn them on, there is a temperature and you can see that," Sheldon Drobot, program manager with NCAR, said. "But the idea is only you're getting information. What we're trying to do is get the car to broadcast that information, as well as things like whether the windshield wipers are on or the anti-lock brake system is engaged. Then we take that from all the cars in the surrounding area and then basically come up with a system that's gonna get the information back to the driver to tell them that 5 miles ahead, cars are reporting icy conditions and then perhaps it could give you some alternatives to say, 'Look, if you take the next left, you're gonna be in a situation or a road that's actually a little bit better to be driving on."

The Boulder project is part of a bigger effort spearheaded by the U.S. Department of Transportation. It's called IntelliDrive and the goal is to significantly reduce road crashes.

"It's certainly a cornerstone of the project: to save lives. It also is a little bit about improving mobility," Drobot said. "Because if we can tell the driver there is a traffic jam five miles ahead because of bad weather and re-route them in a different direction, that's going to save them time."

Not only that, IntelliDrive is also about being green.

"If we're not sitting in traffic idling, we're not wasting gas. That's going to cut down on our greenhouse gas emissions as well," Drobot said.

This month, NCAR is using 11 cars in Detroit to test weather conditions and figure out how the system will work.

"A lot of the technology already exists," Drobot said. "In a sense, we're just repackaging it in ways that are going to help the driver more."

Scientists aren't sure what the system will look like. Right now, they're thinking it might be a chip that could be installed in a car. The technology could be similar to the one used on toll roads to help transmit the information.

"A decade from now, this will be something that's just there, it's part of your car and it's for people who are just getting into driving at that point. It's just something that's going to be natural for them," Drobot said.

The project in Boulder focuses on weather.

Other parts of IntelliDrive include things like alerting drivers about a nearby car moving erratically or running a red light.

Scientists envision cars will be able to talk to each other within the next 10 years.

For more information on IntelliDrive, visit http://www.intellidriveusa.org/index.php and http://www.its.dot.gov/intellidrive/index.htm.

For more information on NCAR, visit http://www.ucar.edu/.