I just heard an interesting report on the radio stating that several new Ford and GM vehicles have a black box installed. This box runs on a loop and can give vital information if an accident occurs (very similar to black boxes found on airplanes) such as speed and rpms at the time of an accident. Police have used this information to convict several persons accused of vehicular homicide. I wonder if these things are now government mandated and am surprised we have not heard more about it.

 

Check out the newest Car and Driver magazine. There is an editorial on such "black boxes" and an incident where a guy was found guilty of murder because of the information retrieved from the data recorder on his car. I don't remember if it is a government mandated item, but GM seems to be putting them on a lot of their new cars.

 

I run my own datalogger but I don't see how they are running these in the US without violating a constitutional right.

 

They do. GM supposedly has the most comprehensive data recorder. In California a bill was supposedly signed recently to protect the privacy of car owners that have these devices. Otherwise the dealer, insurance company and the dog can get the data if they could get to your car. Now they need a court order or your permission.

 

I've got a GM product. If that black box works as "well" as everything else on their autos, we've got nothing to worry about.

 

Beige Davis signed it as he was getting booted. These things have been around forever, GM being the main instigator. Just remember a court order is essentially a technicality; any prosecutor or plaintiff's attorney who can sign their name is probably going to get access to the info. It's the wave of the future.

 

im afraid of the day , every car will have some sort of police divice , give a little gas , and cops will be all over your ass
that would seriosly suck!

 

The article says the data recorder is for the air bags. It collects and stores only 5 seconds of data at a time before an impact so that it knows whether to deploy the air bags at full strength or halfway. I believe it monitors speed, braking, and which way the car was heading.

 

According to the C & D article, it records vehicle speed, throttle position, brake position, RPMs, force of the impact, location of impact, and some have sensors to determine weight of the seated person (in the multi-stage bags).

Since instantaneous information would be useless, I can see it recording for 5 seconds to detirmine rate of change information.

Personally, I think the information should be saved in RAM, so when the box loses power the information is lost. By that point, the bags would've been deployed. (or at least you'd think so).

 

Here's where they are going with this:

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/sto...1011463,00.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/transport/Story/...1011523,00.html

Behind every technological measure, there's a way for the government to collect revenue off of it. I'm pretty sure that if this is successful in the UK, it'll show up here quickly.

What the article mentions is mostly speeding. The automated data collection points are just off the side of the road and can collect the data as you drive by. Citations then appear in the mail. They are already working on ways to detect other driving infractions. The key thing to watch out for is being able to pinpoint your location, so when GPS is incorporated, then it's time to really worry.