Abstract. Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) play an important role in increasing the safety on today's roads. Forward collision warning systems, lane change assistants or cooperative adaptive cruise control are examples of safety relevant applications that rely on accurate relative positioning between vehicles. Current solutions found in commercial automobiles estimate the position of surrounding vehicles by measuring the distance with RADAR, cameras or IR-sensors. It is envisioned that the advent of inter-car communication will provide onboard relative positioning systems with further information about other vehicles in the surrounding area. While performing research in this field, the need of a proper reference system for testing new approaches originates. In the ideal case, such a reference system would yield the exact and continuous 3D baseline between two vehicles at any time in any circumstance. In this paper we will characterize the use of a laser scanner as a reference system for relative vehicle positioning.