I heard recently on NPR that vehicles with airbags have had "black boxes" that record vital information--speed, braking, and so on--in a continuous loop. The idea is that the automotive engineers could use the information about what was happening just before the airbag(s) deployed to help them determine whether the deployment was justified; this would help them design better algorithms for deciding when to use (and when not to use airbags). The story centered on courts' decisions that the black box data are the property of the vehicle owner and that neither law enforcement nor insurance companies were allowed to get those data without the owner's permission.

Does anyone here know whether a 2003 Honda Odyssey has such a black box?

 

I'm not sure, but it is not very popular yete on autos, I know for sure that the Corvette has one, and a few other GM cars

 

The spy in your car