"The recorder would use half a kilobyte of flash memory to record ten seconds of data—five seconds before the crash and five seconds after the crash. It would tally such information as speed at impact, how long the brakes had been applied, how many times the car was hit—all factors that can help determine the cause of a crash and who was at fault. "
My git reaction is I think its great but why ony 10 seconds? Record a whole minute before and after and not just all car systems but stick an autogyro in there and record the cars position. That’ll tell you skid, roll, slide and all sorts of data. If you get T-boned, thats valuable evidence for your side.
heck, have them stick a microphone so we hear the drivers last words an screams too. what the hell. releasing that information is subject to family consent only. Sometimes a drivers comments are very telling.
The “black box” data is used by insurance companies and car companies. That alone ought to raise a red flag. Whether the data is used to make cars safer or allow lawyers to shift blame (maybe back at the driver) is part of the debate.
The larger question is: Who owns the black box and its data in one’s own car?
I always find it strangely funny that people with something to hide cling to the privacy right so strongly.
Driving is a privalege not a right. In an accident they rely on physical evidence left on the scene. This kind of evidence can get sketchy and subjective sometimes. A Black box will remove all doubts. A copy of the data should be given to the car owner (or driver or the insured) and in case of an accident, should be the property of the police as evidence. Insurance can request a copy as part of the accident report.
In case of minor accidents not involving the police, the black box data can be copied (or downloaded) and exchanged as a requirement, just like exchanging drivers licenses.
Insurance will pay for medical benefits whether it was your fault or not. If they require that it not be your fault, then change your insurance quickly.
What a bunch of BS. Is there no end to amount of information big brother wants on our every move. I am sure the insurance agencies are behind this crap. It’s going to cost me how many more $$$$ to purchase a new car with one of these in it? All for the insurance companies. Unbelievable.
well, I didnt advocate the requirement of these things to be put in. I just thought it was a good idea to have it and make full use of it. Newer cars should have them as a standard. We can still drive our old unequipted ones for however long it lasts. If you hit a car without one, you deal with it. Its in your interest to have it to prove no fault.
This information is only used in an accident anyways, what kinda privacy is violated here?
Oregon news is reporting this as a revived program because their economy is on the skids.
So if you’re from the East Coast on vacation in Oregon, will they stop you at the state border, require you to install a state GPS monitor and record all your driving? Then when you leave the state will that mean returning the GPS monitor, checking the data and being issued a bill (credit card payment?) before you can continue on?
I think the use of a black box solely for crash examination purposes is a good idea, but I’m worried about how far this might be taken. For instance, what if insurance companies could download it and raise your rates based on how fast you drive, as recorded by the box? Still, I think it would be a good idea. Police can already judge if someone was speeding in an accident based on things like skid-marks; a box would just make the data more accurate, and I can’t imagine why anyone would object to that.
There is an accident recorder device on the market: the UDS by VDO Kienzle. The linked document describes a course of events where having it installed would be advantageous. The short recording span of 45 seconds is possibly because of privacy considerations - surely with RAM as cheap as it is it could be longer.
I recollect a discussion in the media in Germany some years ago about whether such devices should be made mandatory. The consensus seemed to be that no, this would violate peoples’ right against self-incrimination. The UDS device seems to be offerered with an optional delete button that you can use if you think the evidence would be against you.
Wouldn’t such a device particularly appeal to car rental firms? Do you now of any company fitting their fleet with it?
At one point I was pondering the idea of how hard it might be to buld a small pod a bit bigger than a typical dome light array with 4 small digital video cameras. Mount it on top of a car, draw power from dome light wiring and have 30 seconds of video stored for accident investigation purposes.
As far as paying for equipment that insurance companies want. Could it not be a discount akin to car alarms for your collision insurance.
Heck if you could rig the cameras to trigger if someone sets the alarm off you might get pix of the person breaking into the car.
Actually, Princhester, they used to do that. The problem is, if you have a car that is absolutely rigid and won’t budge an inch in a crash, you subject the passengers to unbelievable g-forces that would almost certainly be fatal, even at relatively low speeds. Cars nowadays are designed with crumple-zones to absorb the energy of even high-speed impacts, to lessen the forces on passengers inside. Usually, the passenger compartment itself is designed to be very strong, so that the car won’t “crumple” too far and crush passengers. That’s my understanding of it all, anyway.
Quite correct hobbes730. Most cars built in the 50’s and 60s were like that. They were tanks. Hardly any damage in minor accidents, but personal injury was way up. Basically, modern cars give up their life for the driver and passenger. Which would you rather have, an undamaged car or an undamaged body?
and as far as personal data privacy and self-incrimination, remember, the thing only records a minute or less of data. all you have to do is drive legally for longer than a minute and that black box data is useless to a cop or the insurance.
Been watching Sienfeld again, have we Princhester?
Heresiarch, an alternate line would have been, “Look! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s sarcasm flying right over your head!”
I had just read the article in the NY Times heresiarch linked to. It seems the car companies are pretty much against it - and to what extent the “black boxes” are already in cars - they all provide varying sets of data and have different computer interfaces. An advantage of having readily available data would be EMS arriving on-scene knowing that a car had experienced g-forces that would mean severe internal trauma and might call for a Medevac copter.
So it seems the car companies don’t want to make cars safer (or deal with lawsuits that might show, for instance, the air bags weren’t deployed and weren’t de-activated).
I am still not altogether for these things being in cars - yet the article did address the question of ownership I had before. If the car is totaled (and 90% of the black boxes are intact) - the insurance company owns the car and the data.
