Vehicle to vehicle (V2V) communications to enhance the downlink and uplink connectivity in vehicular networks are studied. Effective rate formulations for the uplink and downlink directions are presented and analyzed, while considering IEEE 802.11p for short range communications between vehicles, and the Long Term Evolution (LTE) for communications between the vehicles and base stations over long range cellular links. Simulation results show the importance of V2V communications, and describe the performance tradeoffs between the transmit power, number of cooperating vehicles, and LTE resource allocation.Index Terms-Vehicle to vehicle communications, vehicular ad hoc networks, LTE, IEEE 802.11p, relay.