Update on Black Box in cars

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Sure, as long as you never speed, never apply the brakes hard, never accelerate hard, never corner hard, etc.

Any amount of data that says otherwise and you can expect some plaintiffs attorney to try and bury you with it. Call me a pessimist, but I expect no good to come of this data being available...
 
I sense a great disturbance in the force
like a million money-hungry lawyers crying out at once...
 
Could be a great saving on trying to figure out who is lying. I am sure there will be some negative impacts, but mostly for those who in the past managed to lie out of stuff.
 
heck ...basically this system is already in your car ...the OBD11 system record the last few hard accleration and breaking event ..so if you get in an accident they can take the data from it and see your speen at point of accedent...good reason for you to have your car towed home after an accident ..rather then to a shoip for repairs....you can later take to shop from your house...this assuming you were speeding and in the wrong
here is a good example where they will use this info to string this driover up by the neck...and deseridlly so!
She was doing 80mph when she ran a red and killed a seattle cop....how do they know 80 ???? The OBD11 http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/281151_crash14.html
 
I think this could be a good thing in getting to the truth behind traffic accidents. I'm glad they didn't mandate them, however, but there should be a standard in place that covers what kind of information should be recorded. Realistically, putting a notification in the owner's manual about the presence of a black box is not going to make much of a difference in terms of public knowledge of these devices as most people don't read their manuals.
 
quote:
Originally posted by labman:
Could be a great saving on trying to figure out who is lying. I am sure there will be some negative impacts, but mostly for those who in the past managed to lie out of stuff.
Click to expand...
The trouble is the potential for misuse, or for the data to be twisted in an attempt to make it say something it really doesn't say.

Lets say I have a car I drive every day but also autocross on weekends. Lets say this idea is expanded slightly to keep more long term data. Neither is too far fetched.

So I get in an accident and the datalog will show tons of WFO operation, lots of hard braking, plenty of body roll, etc.

That certainly isn't going to help me when I tell the judge or jury I've been driving for almost 35 years with no accidents that were my fault and I can't remember my last ticket it's been so long and there have been so few. It won't matter. The assumption will be I'm reckless and just never had the odds catch up with me. Not good IMO...
 
Boy, that's a tough call. I'm on the fence post on this. What I really don't want to happen, but already is with some companies, is real time data. If the company vehicle goes over the speed limit, stops to long, etc. etc. then some people have been fired over that. I've heard some rental car companies are doing that and issuing tickets for speeding. Eventually, it will come to that. Micromanagement by "the man."
 
Deepsquat, that vehicle probably would have had a black box in it. GM's been doing it on all their vehicles for a few years already. Correct me if I'm wrong, but OBDII by itself won't record that kind of data.
 
No, it won't. OBD-II specifies a standardized protocol for diagnostic information as well as enhanced diagnostics and self-tests compared to OBD-I.

Nothing more, nothing less.
 
The main purpose on the black box is to gather data (evidence) for the auto manufacture. Not the customer, in the event of a lawsuit brought against the auto manufacture. They could care less about what happens to you unless you sue them.

Some current units are now recording number of times the vehicle has been over 80 mph in its life time. Not what happened just before a wreck. Why is that? So show a pattern perhaps?

quote:
good reason for you to have your car towed home after an accident ..rather then to a shoip for repairs....you can later take to shop from your house...this assuming you were speeding and in the wrong
Click to expand...
Won't do any good, if the air bags are deployed the data is locked in there till its reset.
 
Here is my problem with selective evidence. This Gresham officer was driving at more that 60 mph in a 25 mph zone with no lights or siren and killed a guy in a TA. He was on his way to a call "to investigate a report of speed racing". He changed his story three times and is still working for Gresham. Link to
 
I made the realization a long time ago that there is no way to know which vehicles have the 'event data' recording in them that would record information with enough detail to be brought to court over. The fact is 2 MPH over and you are done in court, you already lost the case, who doesn't go 2 MPH over. I have an OBD I vehicle manufactured in 1995 and I've seen how all of the electronics connect together in my vehicle and I know that there really can't be a way for anybody to pull information from it. It has airbags but what data will it have if they deployed, I have a feeling it would be nothing.
 
Deepsquat and Hirev: In neither of those two stories is there mention of data from a black box. If there were black boxes in the cars involved, the particular technical data collected would be irrefutable, and the cause and fault of the accident would be better known.
For those who say manufacturers would build a case against you for a pattern of speeding, in court, previous behavior isn't proof of anything and would likely be inadmissible (although I do see a problem of a jury ignoring it). Perhaps a legal expert could chime in?
I do agree that the manufacturers will try to use whatever they can against you, but if the data belongs to you, the owner, then wouldn't you prefer to have this data than not?
 
The real question in the first case is who had the red? A camera on the intersection might provide better data than any black box. Say maintain a half hour record until downloaded? To my way of thinking right of the way violations are a bigger problem than even outlandish speeding.
 
quote:
Originally posted by Tosh:
but if the data belongs to you, the owner, then wouldn't you prefer to have this data than not?
Click to expand...
That cannot be assured. You don't have the ownership of your medical records and any number of other things that you pay for. If this is widely adopted the government (which one I don't know =fed or states) will make it "implied consent" to view the data if you're involved in a traffic stop or accident ..just like a blood alcohol level test. It's part of getting your license.

I personally could see a few problems with it. If you're speeding, and most of us do speed, and you happen to get in an accident, you're in more trouble. Also insurance companies may want to rate you on data recorded. They will take into account weekend racers ...that's risk to them too ..and if they happen to also be your life insurance company
dunno.gif
 
quote:
Originally posted by MN Driver:
The fact is 2 MPH over and you are done in court, you already lost the case, who doesn't go 2 MPH over.
Click to expand...
And without calibration, who is to say that the speed stored in an EDR is correct?

That's why police car speedometers (and other speed measuring equipment, such as radar guns) are calibrated and certified.
 
I read somewhere that speedo's are allowed to have a 6% error to account for different tires sizes.
Anyone know about this?

How's the box store the information?
 
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