# Car Tracking Devices? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 21, 2016, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/car-tracking-devices/775296 "2016-12-21T14:53:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Jinx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Jinx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jinx)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/car-tracking-devices/775296/1 "2016-12-21T14:53:16Z")
This past Saturday was an icy day in Baltimore where an oil tanker truck flipped over and exploded…causing about a 65 car pile-up. The local news reporter today said the police will access data from the truck’s recording device, plus the 65 cars’ recording devices to determine the sequence of events… Wait, what? Since when did Personal Occupancy Vehicles (POVs) cars (i.e., non-commercial vehicles) get tracking / recording devices? Is this the best dirty little secret yet? What’s the SD on this one? ---
**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/car-tracking-devices/775296/2 "2016-12-21T15:18:35Z")
Do you have a link to this news report? BTW did you see the video of the accident? That truck blew the F up like Nakatomi Plaza. ---
**Author:** ![Me\_Billy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e480ec/32.png) [@Me\_Billy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Me_Billy)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/car-tracking-devices/775296/3 "2016-12-21T15:23:49Z")
They probably meant the cars which have cameras installed. These would have been installed by the private car owners. Also if there were some company/government cars, those might have had cameras. Anyway these days it is a good bet that at least few of the cars had cameras. Also many businesses and some homes have surveillance cameras. So police will go door to door checking for that footage as well. (If something happened near those places.) As for trucks, many semi-trucks have camera systems and GPS tracking devices installed. ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/car-tracking-devices/775296/4 "2016-12-21T15:25:27Z")
New cars have “black boxes”. > [@](#): > > The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on Friday proposed long-delayed regulations requiring auto manufacturers to include event data recorders — better known as “black boxes” — in all new cars and light trucks beginning Sept. 1, 2014. But the agency is behind the curve. Automakers have been quietly tucking the devices, which automatically record the actions of drivers and the responses of their vehicles in a continuous information loop, into most new cars for years. > > When a car is involved in a crash or when its airbags deploy, inputs from the vehicle’s sensors during the 5 to 10 seconds before impact are automatically preserved. That’s usually enough to record things like how fast the car was traveling and whether the driver applied the brake, was steering erratically or had a seat belt on. [https://www.yahoo.com/news/black-boxes-cars-raise-privacy-concerns-082047728.html?ref=gs](https://www.yahoo.com/news/black-boxes-cars-raise-privacy-concerns-082047728.html?ref=gs) ---
**Author:** ![quimper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7c8e57/32.png) [@quimper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/quimper)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/car-tracking-devices/775296/5 "2016-12-21T15:43:00Z")
Been this way for decades, as I understand it. ‘Tracking’ isn’t quite accurate, either (AFAIK only cars with embedded GPS units can do that\*) more like throttle, brake, velocity, seatbelt/airbag status etc. Just about every car with OBD2\*\* records the last 20 seconds before the crash. Here’s a site that [discusses extracting this data](http://www.tomsguide.com/us/obdii-onboard-car-diagnostics-hack,review-1545-14.html) in a little more detail. \*Onboard GPS was analyzed by Turkish police in 2011 to track the movements of a [team of suspected Russian hitmen](http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-38294204) eliminating Chechens living in Turkey \*\*OBD2 has been required in every car sold in the US since 1996 ---
**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/car-tracking-devices/775296/6 "2016-12-21T16:16:35Z")
The real issue is not whether the black boxes exist in vehicles (they do), how much data is collected just before an accident (it varies), [but who actually owns the data](https://epic.org/privacy/edrs/). So if you get into an accident, can law enforcement download the data without your consent (warrant)? [Not every owner is protected](http://www.cedtechnologies.com/event-data-recorders/), depending upon the state in which you live. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/car-tracking-devices/775296/7 "2016-12-21T17:31:02Z")
I assume it began as a “cover your behind” thing with automakers. The computer that triggers the airbag automatically preserves the last few seconds (10?) of travel data showing speed, braking, and various inertial sensors for collision when an airbag goes off. I assume this was to verify if an airbag went off (or not) for a valid reason in case of a lawsuit. Presumably once you throw in built in GPS for some cars, that data is also preserved. Do cars actually store camera video, unless it’s a separate dashcam? But my car has lane departure and collision warning, and I assume when anything that triggers that alert, the status of the alert is preserved in the data too. So as long as your airbag went off, the authorities can probably get a good idea of the role your car played in a massive pile-up; moving? Stationary? Braking? Hit? In what direction was the impact - did it push you forward, push you back? Not sure what happens in multiple impact situations, because one the airbag goes off you probably stopped recording.