Patent ID: 8742987

Claim:
A method of selectively verifying and processing messages within a vehicle-to-vehicle communication system, the method comprising the steps of: (a) a host vehicle receiving a message in the vehicle-to-vehicle communication system from a remote vehicle; (b) evaluating a time-to-collision status between the host vehicle and the remote vehicle sending the message, the time-to-collision status being a function of a relative distance and a relative velocity between the host vehicle and the remote vehicle which are determined from data provided within a first portion of the message received from the respective remote vehicle; (c) assigning an attentive factor to the remote vehicle based on the time-to-collision status, the attentive factor for a remote vehicle identifying a non-zero proportion of messages broadcast from the remote vehicle to be targeted for security processing, the proportion of messages being less than 100 percent; (d) performing security processing of the message using a second portion of the message unless the attentive factor indicates the message should be ignored; and (e) returning to step (a) for each subsequent message.