Black Boxes For Your Car

[Sprayber]

I don't know if this has been discussed here but I was listening to a radio talk show and this topic came up. There were many people that seemed hostile to the idea of having their driving data recorded. What is your view.

http://www.itsa.org/ITSNEWS.NSF/4e06...a?OpenDocument

SAN FRANCISCO, CA, September 2, 2002 - Most people know that electronic flight data recorders -- also known as "black boxes" -- are a critical source of information to aircraft crash investigators.

Yet most motorists don't realize that if they're driving a newer model car, especially from General Motors or Ford, chances are good that their vehicle also has a device that can record accident data.

Now, traffic safety experts and makers of these types of devices are pushing for more widespread use of this technology, which they say can lead to safer cars, better drivers, lower insurance rates and faster accident investigations.

Information downloaded from the data recorder of a 2000 Chevrolet Camaro is playing an important role in the case of a Livermore woman charged with vehicular manslaughter in connection with a crash in February.

And next month, a Southern California firm will go a step further by selling a black box to parents who want to monitor the driving habits of their teenage sons or daughters.

Although privacy and legal experts warn there's a danger that data from these black boxes could be misused, the devices appear on track to become a standard item in cars within a few years.

"That's small solace to the 'Big Brother' conspiracy theorists, but if it saves some people's lives, I think there are ways to do it so that the rights of the owners of the vehicles are protected," said Philip Haseltine, president of the Automobile Coalition for Traffic Safety Inc., an Arlington, Va., group whose members include the biggest automakers in the United States, Japan and Germany.

The National Transportation Safety Board has advocated use of electronic data recorders in motor vehicles since 1997. Numerous studies, including a report released last August by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, have since noted the potential benefits of car black boxes. Integrating data recorders with wireless technology such as global positioning systems or cellular telephones could help speed emergency help to victims of a serious accident.

"Event Data Recorders (EDRs) offer great potential for improving vehicle and highway safety," the report said.

"A measurement is worth a thousand opinions," said Dr. Ricardo Martinez, former head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

PUBLIC HEALTH ISSUE

Martinez, an emergency room physician, said he wants black boxes mandated for all vehicles and says gathering proper data from crashes, which killed 42, 116 people in 2001, is as important a public health issue as medical research.

"You can't attack any problem until you understand the cause," said Martinez, who now heads an Atlanta firm involved in an effort with the Georgia Institute of Technology to develop a data recorder and accident reporting device called the MacBox.

Martinez said that while he was at the safety administration during the Clinton administration, he was astounded by the lack of data gathered from real crashes.

Air bags, he said, were originally designed based on controlled laboratory crashes, not real-world crashes.

"They're not for protecting (crash) dummies -- they're for protecting people," he said.

The agency experimented with black boxes in cars as early as 1974, and since the early 1990s, automakers have quietly installed EDR devices in cars along with the air bags.

General Motors began installing EDRs in some 1990 models to glean information about how air bags were being deployed.

By 1994, GM's Sensing and Diagnostic Module began measuring the severity of crashes that triggered an air bag. And in 1999, GM designed the module to save data for about five seconds before a crash. The data includes the car's speed, engine revolution rate, throttle opening and application of the brakes.

HELPING BOTH SIDES

Haseltine noted that the sensors helped GM win a lawsuit filed by the family of Jerome Brown, the NFL star killed in a 1992 accident. The family contended the air bag in his Chevrolet Corvette had deployed early.

But sensors also helped owners of Pontiac Sunfires and Chevrolet Cavaliers who complained that the air bags were deploying at a low speed, Haseltine said.

Sensor model data revealed a programming problem, and the models were recalled.

Ford, meanwhile, began installing a Restraining Control Module in 1997 to control air bags and seat belts. It has since upgraded the module to record vehicle information five seconds before a crash, including front and side acceleration, driver and passenger air bag deployment and whether seat belts were buckled.

"More and more, we're going to see manufacturers who have been thus far hesitant to follow GM's lead," Haseltine said.

All new GM cars and almost all Fords have data recorders, said Don Gilman, a business manager for Vetronix Corp. of Santa Barbara. His firm has struck deals with both GM and Ford to make hardware and software that allows third parties, such as accident reconstruction firms and law enforcement officers, to download the black-box data.

Gilman said most other automakers have quietly installed some level of data recording in their cars but do not allow third parties to download the information.

Vetronix has sold about 1,000 of its black-box downloading systems to customers who include the California Highway Patrol.

"It's an unbiased witness," Gilman said. "It will tell you information, and if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear."

Other private companies, like RoadSafety International Inc. of Camarillo (Ventura County) and Independent Witness Inc. of Salt Lake City, are marketing black-box data recorders. DriveCam Inc. of San Diego markets a camera that captures the video and audio from inside a car, along with braking, accelerations and cornering before a crash.

FLEET OPERATORS

Operators of fleets have been the main market for black boxes. Mike Lyons, presidemt of Independent Witness, said his firm's crash data recorders are in nearly all cabs in the Las Vegas area. And after the death of star Dale Earnhardt, NASCAR ordered the videotape-size boxes installed in every race car to compile data from crashes during the 2002 season.

The company is also trying to persuade insurance companies that the devices can lower costs and rates, possibly using them to monitor high-risk drivers. Lyons said, "The vision of our company has always been to affect insurance rates."

RoadSafety President Larry Selditz said his company has installed about 10, 000 black-box systems in 10 years, mainly in "high-risk" fleets such as ambulances. The mere existence of a box monitored by a fleet manager is often enough to change unsafe driving habits, such as the surprising 25 percent of paramedics who were not buckling up, he said.

"Our focus changed as we started to do emergency response (vehicles)," he said. "We saw a real need to change driving behavior."

Next month, RoadSafety plans to start selling a scaled-down, $280 version of its commercial box to parents worried about setting their teenagers loose behind the wheel.

The box, which plugs into the computerized diagnostic system present in cars sold since 1996, sets off an alarm for speeding, burning rubber, braking hard or unbuckled seat belts. The box also stores seven days' worth of data on a memory card that parents can plug into a home computer.

"Our system is like being able to sit next to your teenager when they drive, " Selditz said.

However, he agreed lines must drawn to preserve privacy. "My concern is, who is going to get the data and how's it going to be used?" he said. "None of us wants Big Brother watching. I don't want an invasion of my privacy. I never want to see this mandated."

The international Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Standards Association has launched a project to create a universal standard defining the data that a motor vehicle's black box should record, including date, time, location, velocity, direction, number of occupants and whether seat belts were buckled.

Most proponents of black boxes agree laws should be written to make the data stored in the devices the legal property of a vehicle's owner, and mandating a court order and other legal checks and balances when the information is sought by law enforcement.

PANDORA'S BOX

However, the spread of black boxes could unlock a Pandora's box of privacy and legal issues if safeguards aren't addressed now, said David Sobel, general counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, D.C.

Sobel is especially concerned about future black boxes that can report a person's location.

"Once you've created some kind of a database, it's difficult to anticipate the potential future uses of that information or anticipate who could be interested," he said. "It could be an employer or a spouse, or any number of people who might want some information about where a person was at a particular time."

Black-box proponents say the devices provide objective information about a crash that can help speed resolution of insurance disputes or court suits.

But Livermore attorney Timothy Rien said the data he has seen so far in one case raise questions about their reliability.

Rien is defending Nicole LaFrenier, a Livermore woman accused of causing a Feb. 24 crash in which three young men died when her Camaro slammed into a tree. A preliminary hearing is scheduled later this month.

Rien, who had never used data from a car black box, obtained a court order and had an accident reconstruction firm download information from the car's Sensing and Diagnostic Module. Although police investigators determined LaFrenier was the only one in the car wearing a seat belt, the black box indicated she was not, Rien said.

"There are two or three things we know that are wrong that are contradicted by police," Rien said. He said the data recorders "are not infallible."

DOWN TO EARTH

Technology commonly thought to be limited to airliners is used to monitor automobiles. Two products are:

THE WITNESS BLACK BOX: From Independent Witness Inc. of Salt Lake City, Utah, the battery-powered device has sensors that monitor the motion of a vehicle. In the event of a crash, the device records the time, date, direction and severity of impact. The firm also designed a box to record the seismic impact on buildings during an earthquake. .

ROAD SAFETY TEEN DRIVER SYSTEM: From Road Safety International Inc. of Camarillo, the device is marketed to parents of teenage drivers. The box plugs into a car's computer diagnostic system to monitor factors like speed, brakes, engine RPMs, and G-force. An alarm sounds for speeding, hard turns or stops, or an unbuckled seat belt. A "spotter switch" also reminds the driver to look behind the vehicle and at the rearview mirrors before backing up. Flash memory stores seven days' worth of data.

[David Floyd]

Absolutely not.

[ixnay]

Absolutely.

[General Ludd]

Wouldn't bother me, I don't drive.

[Az]

I have no problem with blackboxes of the last half of an hour of driving.

That Teen Driving Whatever system is utter crap though.

[VetLegion]

I support it in a radical form. All driving data should be recorded, maybe reviewed periodicaly.

[Thorn]

Black box in my car eh? Well I'm going to blow it up... RECORD THAT BASTARDS!!!

[VetLegion]

You are going to crash into a wall in an attempt to destroy the box?

[Sprayber]

Since the boxes aren't federally mandated there wouldn't be anything criminal with disabling them but since they are imbeded someway into the airbag system, it may require disabling it. Your insurance company may not like that too well if your injured.

For companies that operate a fleet of veichles I see no problem with them installing boxes to control how their cars and trucks are used. And if a parent wants to monitor their teen while they drive and they have paid for that car or pay for insurance I don't see anything wrong with that. For everyone else, I can't see this being mandated my law anytime soon. Perhaps insurance companies will provide discounted policies for veichles that have them installed and operational. If you don't agree then you can always pay the higher premiums.

If you have a newer car or truck, you may have on in there and not be aware of it.

[Skanky Burns]

I don't mind it, provided there is a decent privacy policy - such that a person off the street, or even a mechanic working on the car will not be able to view all the details of your car.

[Sarxis]

I'd rip it out just like I purposely rip the tags off my mattresses.

[Dis]

well its funny how americans support devices such as these in airplanes. But when people actually recommend using these devices in their personal vehicles they get hostile.

But there is one key difference. Black Boxes are also used to determine mechanical causes of crashes in air planes. Mechanical causes are a major source of airplane crashes. But this is not the case with personal vehicles. Most of those causes are human.

In any case I don't support forcing these boxes on the consumer. But I think maybe the insurance company should offer a discount to have them installed.

[Timexwatch]

I'm afraid that Insurance Carriers will raise rates and then offer "discounts" to those that install these to lower their rates back down to "normal" levels. These will end up being market mandated.

[Sava]

I'd only agree to it if the info were only used in crash circumstances. It could save my life. But if it's a tool for the insurance companies to pad their profits, then I'd say f*ck off and I'd start mailing my sh1t to those companies.