WASHINGTON — Your car might see a deadly crash coming even if you don’t, the government says, so officials are moving to require automakers to equip new vehicles with technology that lets them warn each other when they’re plunging toward peril.

The action, still a couple of years off, has “game-changing potential” to cut crashes, deaths and injuries, officials said Monday.

A radio beacon would continually transmit a vehicle’s position, heading, speed and other information. Cars would receive the same information back from other vehicles, and a vehicle’s computer would alert the driver to an impending collision.

Some systems may automatically brake to avoid an accident if manufacturers choose to include that option.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which has been working with automakers on the technology for the past decade, estimates vehicle-to-vehicle communications could prevent up to 80 percent of accidents that don’t involve drunken drivers or mechanical failure.

The technology holds major potential to prevent crashes in the first place, while the government’s focus until now has been on ensuring accidents are survivable, David Friedman, the head of the safety administration, said at a news conference.

However, it will still be a least several years and perhaps longer before manufacturers would have to put the technology in vehicles, officials said.