KANSAS CITY, Mo. — You're driving along a dark, lonely highway at night. Ahead, just over a hill, there's an accident. You can't see it, and you're barreling toward it at 70 mph.

Suddenly, a red light flashes on the dashboard of your car.

"Stop now!" a message reads. "Accident ahead."

You hit the brakes, slowing and swerving just enough to avoid becoming a tragic roadside statistic.

Technology like this could be in place on major roadways within the next decade or two, experts predict. Granted, there are significant obstacles in the way — start with funding, which could soar into the billions of dollars. But as the world of technology speeds ahead, highway safety experts are restricted by nothing but their imaginations.

"We're striving to make a difference," said Jason JonMichael, senior project manager at HNTB Corp., a Kansas City company playing a crucial role in the development of highway technology. "The possibilities are limitless."

Look no further than Vehicle Infrastructure Integration, a development in the transportation world that supporters believe could revolutionize vehicular travel.

How?

By enabling automobiles to "communicate" with one another and the roads on which they are being driven. By allowing the instantaneous transfer of data — the changing conditions of a slippery street, for example — from one vehicle to another or from a roadside data center to a car.

Here is how it would work:

Vehicles would be equipped with sophisticated computing and communications devices that would store, dissect and disseminate data. Those units would calculate the vehicle's position, speed, rate of acceleration — everything. Some of that data would be transmitted to other vehicles, and some of it to roadside data centers. The roadside units, not much bigger than a shoe box, would then feed centralized computers, perhaps at a state's Department of Transportation.

Those computers would compile, analyze and redistribute the data to vehicles on the road and back to roadside data centers.

And most of it would happen within milliseconds.

"We've just seen a hint of what's to come in terms of vehicle integration and intelligent transportation systems," said U.S. Rep. Bruce Braley, an Iowa Democrat on the House Subcommittee on Highways and Transit. "This is just the tip of the iceberg."

The possibilities are almost endless:

A warning system could alert you if you are in danger of running a red light, and some prototype vehicles even have an illuminated dashboard "countdown" to when the upcoming light will change.

The V.I.I. system could coordinate with a traffic signal at an upcoming intersection, giving all drivers a red light if it determines an upcoming vehicle is going to blow through an intersection and perhaps trigger an accident.

The vehicle might tip you off that, because the roads ahead are moist and slick, you are driving too fast for the conditions. Or, it could sound a series of loud "chirps" or vibrate the seat incessantly if sensors detect you're veering onto the shoulder, perhaps because you're falling asleep.