Little Agreement in Transportation Safety Comments to FCC

Evolving technologies, not dedicated short-range communications, will make the roadways safer, the Free State Foundation told the FCC in docket 19-138, posted Friday. Various state groups urged the regulator to leave DSRC intact. Commissioners agreed 5-0 in December to examine revised rules for the swath, reallocating 45 MHz for Wi-Fi, with 20 MHz reserved for cellular-vehicle to everything and 10 for DSRC (see 1912180019). “The success of a network-oriented safety application like DSRC hinges upon the ubiquitous integration of that technology into all vehicles on the road,” FSF said. “That requires automobile manufacturers to build the standard into every new car -- and even then, years must pass before incompatible models exit the roadways. In the case of DSRC, unfortunately, that simply is not what we have witnessed.” The Institute of Transportation Engineers is disappointed in the FCC plan. “The proposal to reallocate more than half of the 5.9 GHz safety spectrum for unlicensed uses comes at a time when more than 36,000 people are dying on our nation’s highways each year, and more than 1.8 million were injured,” the group said. The South Dakota Department of Transportation defended DSRC: “Opportunities to radically improve the nation’s mobility, safety and economic vitality are rare, but such an opportunity is before us in preserving the 5.9 GHz spectrum for transportation.” The Center for Auto Safety said reallocating the spectrum would “inevitably further delay and imperil deployment of life-saving ... technologies.”