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Privacy Technology

'Black Box' Readings Help Convict Montreal Driver 640

Posted by timothy from the panopticon dept.
the man writes "From CBC News, Here's one that is going to get a lot of attention in the coming years. Quebec police won a dangerous-driving conviction Friday using evidence from the 'black box' in the car, a first in the province. Turns out that not many people know of these things. Time to start working on the mod for my Toyota."
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'Black Box' Readings Help Convict Montreal Driver More

'Black Box' Readings Help Convict Montreal Driver

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  • well (Score:5, Interesting)

    by revmoo ( 652952 ) <slashdotNO@SPAMmeep.ws> on Saturday October 25, 2003 @02:25PM (#7309223) Homepage Journal
    As much as everyone here will rant on and on about how this is an intrusion of their rights, how "big brother" is watching them, this is actually a rather good idea.

    I'm not saying it should be mandated that these be installed in every single vehicle manufactured, but I see no reason why they shouldn't be admitted as evidence in a trial. Perhaps it will make people think twice before speeding like maniacs... ...*goes to check that his car doesn't have one*

    • Re:well (Score:2, Funny)

      by MooCows ( 718367 )
      Come visit the Boxwhores! [boxwhores.com]

      Your sig is hauntingly appropriate.

    • Re:well (Score:5, Insightful)

      by EvanED ( 569694 ) <evaned.gmail@com> on Saturday October 25, 2003 @02:40PM (#7309326)
      I agree. I'll be one of the first people to jump up at privacy violations, but I think both that the privacy issues with this are minimal and that the benefits are enormous. I would pay to have one of these installed so in the event of a crash if there's a dispute over who is at fault or if insurance should cover, I can pull the information and say "look, not my fault." Of course, if these start phoning home and reporting violations, then we have a major problem. They should be accessable only with a warrant or by the owner (or people s/he hires).

    • Re:well (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Potor ( 658520 ) <farker1@gmai l . com> on Saturday October 25, 2003 @02:50PM (#7309383) Journal
      You have not given an argument for why you think it is a good idea that something I own can then spy on me, why the existence of this device should be hidden from me, and why it should be illegal for me to remove or tamper with it.

      Moreover, you have not argued in any way why this is actually a rather good idea, nor specified what "this" is -- is it the box, or its admission as evidence, or something else?

      Further, you tread rather dangerously close to what I call the technicalist fallacy, which is the belief that technology will solve the problems of human behaviour. The box will not stop speeding, but rather increase the amount of information the police have at their disposal. This fallacy is constantly invoke to intrude on daily life. And the more we crave our convenience, the more it will take away our privacy. And don't tell me the roads are not private, for this is not the issue. The issue is making any given citizen culpable for every minute of his/her life.

      cheers, potor (like you, I do not own a car, and nor do I ever plan to buy one.)

      • I don't have mod point at the moment, so consider this a "virtual" +1 Insightful...

      • Re:well (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Pig Hogger ( 10379 ) <pig.hogger@gmail ... m minus caffeine> on Saturday October 25, 2003 @04:23PM (#7309853) Journal
        You have not given an argument for why you think it is a good idea that something I own can then spy on me, why the existence of this device should be hidden from me, and why it should be illegal for me to remove or tamper with it.
        Here are a few good reasons. Enjoy!
        1. Driving is a public activity performed on public roads, therefore there cannot be any expectation of privacy
        2. Driving is not a right, but a privilege. However, to be safe from the negligence of other is a right, so it is quite natural that a privilege be deemed less important than a right, therefore the due process needed to remove a privilege shall be less arduous than required to remove a right.
        3. Putting event recorders in cars is no different than putting policemen on every street corner, which is perfectly legal now. So making event recorders in car compulsory is therefore legal, and obstructing it's operation shall be deemed the same thing as interfering with the work of police.
        4. Aircraft, locomotives, buses and trucks are currently fitted with event recorders. It is only natural that this be extended to automobiles, especially that the standard behaviour expected of car drivers is considerably lower than for the other vehicles and the greater number of automobiles make for considerable danger.

      • Re:well (Score:3, Insightful)

        by sfe_software ( 220870 )
        You have not given an argument for why you think it is a good idea that something I own can then spy on me, why the existence of this device should be hidden from me, and why it should be illegal for me to remove or tamper with it.

        I'm not the person you are replying to, but... a couple of points:

        1) The device isn't intended to "spy" on you. It is intended to assist the manufacturer in improving airbags (in this particular case).

        2) I don't think the existance is "hidden" from you. If you were to inquire

      • Re:well (Score:3, Informative)

        by siphoncolder ( 533004 )
        Let me correct your ignorance: aren't you aware of how your AIR-BAGS WORK?

        This is a point that I believe sorely needs to be addressed: the "black-box" you're all going on about is the sensor that helps the airbag decide whether to go off or not. If you tap a wall or another car in a parking lot, the airbag doesn't go off because the sensor knows that you're only travelling at 5mph. Conversely, if you slam into a car at 40mph, your airbags will fire.

        Secondly, the sensor doesn't record more than 5 seco

      • Re:well (Score:3, Insightful)

        by jonbrewer ( 11894 ) *
        The box will not stop speeding, but rather increase the amount of information the police have at their disposal. This fallacy is constantly invoke to intrude on daily life. And the more we crave our convenience, the more it will take away our privacy. And don't tell me the roads are not private, for this is not the issue. The issue is making any given citizen culpable for every minute of his/her life.

        And there you have it. I could care less how fast you go, but if you fuck up, you damn well better be cul

    • Re:well (Score:5, Insightful)

      by colinemckay ( 610522 ) on Saturday October 25, 2003 @03:19PM (#7309536)
      No privacy violation -- it doesn't track where you've been, since these things only record a few seconds of data, it doesn't transmit to anyone, and it isn't easily accessable.

      Further, the box has an equal ability to prove that someone is not at fault. It is there as a neutral observer.
      • It's usage is not really the issue. It's the surveillance factor that's at issue here. When is it ok to put surveillance sensors in products and not tell the consumer. (Remember, the consumer owns the car.)

        Try to imagine all the products you buy on a daily basis. Now imagine if each of them contained some sort of sensor that recorded how you used them, and this information was available to the manufacturer and even the police. (How about a fridge that takes your picture each time you open it.)

        How i

      • Except that... (Score:3, Insightful)

        by phorm ( 591458 )
        Further, the box has an equal ability to prove that someone is not at fault. It is there as a neutral observer.

        Most people don't know their car has such a box. I don't know if my does, but being that it's over 10 years old I'm blessing the merits of not having the latest technology for once.

        Now, it's fine to say that "Joe Average could use this to prove his innocence," but it seems in most cases "Joe Average" doesn't even know the thing is there, or what it does, and thus it would only likely be used a
    • I'm not saying it should be mandated that these be installed in every single vehicle manufactured,

      They should be mandatory if they are going to be used at all. Otherwise, people who know they are going to drive like maniacs will select cars without blackboxes while mostly law-abiding drivers will get screwed if they cross the line some time (emergency, etc.) and happen to have an accident.

      Either make these things mandatory for everybody or don't permit them to be used as evidence at all. But using them

    • Re:well (Score:5, Insightful)

      by BSD Yoda ( 701352 ) on Saturday October 25, 2003 @03:48PM (#7309689)
      Well, in my country there is a fifth amendment to our constitution that prevents the government from compelling us to incriminate ourselves in criminal court. This is a direct violation of that amendment. The biggest argument against this, though, is that there is no third-party validation. The local cops have to calibrate their radar guns, on a regular basis, with some known standard. The black box on the other hand, is configured however GM wants it to be configured, and is held to no external standard. In fact, they could alter the data to protect themselves in certain error conditions and no one could do anything about it because they're accountable to no one. Other factors such as damage to the device, and more likely, damage to sensors, could alter the readings recorded by the device, and the poor driver would be convicted with almost no recourse - the car company probably couldn't even be forced to provide the source to the box code since its a trade secret. This is one of the worst ideas ever. At least word is out now, soon there will be a pissed off engineer who will figure out how to bypass it....

  • Here's an idea (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 25, 2003 @02:25PM (#7309226)
    How about just driving responsibly instead of trying to mod your box so you can continue driving irresponsibly? If you've gotten in an accident AND the box happens to show you were driving like a fool, then in order for it to be a conspiracy someone would have intentionally had to get you in an accident while your box was malfunctioning.

    Right. I believe you.

    • The problem... (Score:2, Interesting)

      by MrEnigma ( 194020 )
      The problem is that they may not have enough data.

      For instance if your tires were spinning, it could record you going a lot faster than you actually were, but the blackbox has no way of telling that, it will just simply record the speed your tires were spinning at...regardless of how fast you were going...

      There are many more things like this...
    • Right. I believe you.

      hence the problem. Say this kind of evidence is used 1,000,000 times in court. Chances are in one of those cases "someone would have intentionally had to get you in an accident while your box was malfunctioning."

      But if the box says so, it must be right.

  • That's bad exactly how? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by October_30th ( 531777 ) on Saturday October 25, 2003 @02:26PM (#7309229) Homepage Journal
    Quebec police won a dangerous-driving conviction Friday using evidence from the 'black box' in the car, a first in the province.

    Dangerous-driving conviction? And that's bad exactly how?

  • toyota mod (Score:5, Interesting)

    by herrvinny ( 698679 ) on Saturday October 25, 2003 @02:27PM (#7309235)
    Time to start working on the mod for my Toyota."

    Wouldn't that be illegal under something? The DMCA, or some Patriot Act whatnot? You're breaking into something that supposed to protect society, etc...
    • Wouldn't that be illegal under something? The DMCA, or some Patriot Act whatnot?

      Ummm...no, not in pinko, liberal, Canada, of which Quebrc is a part, thought they try to leave every few years but can't seem to bring themselves to wean themselves off of federal money. Actually, I think that the next time the Quebec frogs decide to have a referendum, the rest of Canada should have one to decide whether we are going to let them stay or not.

  • Paranoid much? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by wampus ( 1932 ) on Saturday October 25, 2003 @02:28PM (#7309241)
    It records a few simple data for a short period... like the events leading up to a crash. Unless you plan on using your car as a murder weapon, I wouldn't worry much about it.

    OTOH, when it starts recording everything and sending it to the police every night at 2am, I will be among the first in the driveway with a soldering iron.
  • So how long until I can put the usage stats from my car's black box onto my website? Can I hook it up to GKrellM? Is there a /proc interface?

  • Ummm, no. (Score:4, Funny)

    by fiftyLou ( 472705 ) on Saturday October 25, 2003 @02:29PM (#7309245)
    Time to start working on the mod for my Toyota.

    Or your driving skills. Your choice.
    • My riding skills are (nearly) flawless, which accounts for why I can lane split and drive past parked traffic the way I do.

      I would say others need to work on their danger perception skills. Driving 10-20 over the limit on a clear open freeway isn't dangerous. Driving 10-20 over (or even the limit) and zipping between and cutting off other cars in a hulking vehicle that can't stop in time is dangerous.

      I can stop in 20-30 feet on my bike, can your 4-wheel road-hogging beastie do the same?

      Just some though
  • Just rebuilt the motor of my '70 Impala. Lots of low milage and high torque but no black box.
    • My daily driver was built in 1957. Not even a single transistor in the whole car and only perhaps one diode (in the fuel pump)

  • Black box becoming standard? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by LordOfYourPants ( 145342 ) on Saturday October 25, 2003 @02:31PM (#7309255)
    Why do planes have black boxes in the first place? I'm guessing the pilots of the plane have a responsibility to their passengers. In the event of a crash, grieving families might want to know what exactly went wrong before a crash. Is a car any different?

    If I'm a passenger driving with a friend, that friend has a responsibility to get me from A to B safely. The same rules apply to me as a driver. I know that if a friend of mine was killed in a crash that I'd like to know if it happened to be someone else's fault or ultimately the car that was driving my friend's fault.

    If you can prove these things inaccurate in crash conditions then maybe we should be second-guessing whether to use them to prosecute people. Until then, I don't see why it's harmful to use them as a tool to reconstruct fault.
    • Planes have black boxes to record aircraft status moments because in some cases the cause is so minor it would be immpossible to tell what cause it without the time line from the Flight Data Recorder.

      • Surely the same can be true in a car?

        • Accidents in cars are cause by driver carelessness that can be easily be determined by a police investigation, and complemented by witnesses.

          Aircraft accidents are almost always just the single aircraft involved, the witnesses/passengers die, and the aircraft breaks up on it's way to the ground.

          So no I really don't see much reason to have a black box except are a prelude to having them networked, in the US the pilot unions had a shit fit about having the FDR reviewed are each flight, but we drivers have

          • "Accidents in cars are cause by driver carelessness that can be easily be determined by a police investigation, and complemented by witnesses."

            Half of plane accidents are caused by pilot error that can easily be determined by a NTSB investigation, and complimented by ATC recordings.

            Okay, that's a bit extreme. But how "easy" you think it is to determine fault is absolutely wrong. My dad has been in three car crashes; in two of them, despite being rear-ended while stopped, there was not enough evidence to a

        • The BB in a plane is completely different than the one in a car.

          An aircraft BB is a complete record of all instruments, as well as a vocal recorder from the cockpit; useful to hear the pilots yelling 'holy crap, the controls aren't responding!'

          The BB in a car is actually the engine computer simply dumping what it's doing to flash RAM when the airbags deploy. A core dump, if you will.

    • When I used to work at a division of GM, these modules were called diagnostic energy reserve modules. The point of them was partly to hold enough energy to detonate the airbags in the event of a collision (say, the front of the car gets cut off or destroyed before the airbag deploys. The other point behind them was to cover the asses of GM in the event that a collision occured and the passengers died. The data was supposed to be used to defend GM.

      Well, now the scope creep comes in. Since the legal system

  • Ok before everyone goes bezerk (Score:5, Informative)

    by unixwin ( 569813 ) on Saturday October 25, 2003 @02:31PM (#7309258) Homepage
    Before everyone starts pulling their hair apart, running into their garages and tear their car to pieces please read what this blackbox does / can do... QUOTE
    The device is known as an event data recorder (EDR), or simply a "black box," because it serves a similar function to a flight data recorder in an aircraft. The information the black boxes record includes: the car's speed; the engine's speed; whether the brakes are applied; the position of the gas pedal. It also records other information, such as whether the driver was wearing a seatbelt and the force of the collision. Because the memory of the black box is limited, it only retains this information for a few seconds. After a collision, the black box contains a record of what was happening in the last seconds before the impact.

    • Re:Ok before everyone goes bezerk (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      No, it does not record any of those things. Instead, it records the sensor reading. For example, if you engage the seatbelt behind your back and under your thighs, the sensor will still say, "seatbelt on." For a more important example, if you lose traction just before impact then the four wheel rpms can be much more or less than the corresponding vehicle speed. And of course the sensors are highly accurate, and frequently calibrated...NOT.

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Saturday October 25, 2003 @02:32PM (#7309266)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • So what (Score:5, Informative)

    by Andorion ( 526481 ) on Saturday October 25, 2003 @02:33PM (#7309273)
    These things will only be used in two cases:

    1) Driver kills or seriously injurs someone, and claims innocence - the box will tell the truth, and if they're guilty of the crime, they SHOULD be found out and punished.

    2) The driver is dead, in which case the box will tell his story for him - and tell it accurately.

    This thing won't be used for your common speeding violation... it's been in cars for a long while, it serves it's purpose, and there's no reason to be up in arms over it.

    ~Berj
    • Current technology is fairly harmless, but as the data capture amount increases in both number of sensors and duration of saving, and all cars are mandated to have GPS/communication devices ( like on-star ) then the data will be used for other purposes.

      Such as tracking where you go.. and when you go there... Bye Bye to one of the last remaining avenues of privacy ( a drive in the country )

  • Things are starting to look up for geeks... (Score:5, Funny)

    by khenson ( 706671 ) on Saturday October 25, 2003 @02:35PM (#7309285)
    I can see geeks getting pulled over and cops plugging into the car for the last 5 minutes speed information.

    "Sir, I suppose I was wrong - your vehicle appeared to be doing 55 all the time... in fact - it appears to be doing 55 right now..."

  • Sure (Score:4, Informative)

    by cubicledrone ( 681598 ) on Saturday October 25, 2003 @02:36PM (#7309294)
    In California, they're about to install sensors to detect if cars are "high emitters" in real time. If the car has high emissions, a picture of the license plate is taken, and the car is scheduled for another tax assessm^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H smog check.

    Eventually, the car will have to be "activated" by a central computer system every day. If emissions are too high, the car just won't start, requiring a $150 tow charge to have it checked ($50) and repaired ($850) and then re-registered ($700) and an insurance premium paid ($385).

    • This is why I try to say the hell away from the left coast...

      I am orginally from St. Louis, where about 3 years ago they started the "Gateway Clean Air" program where your car is checked by a sensor crew while driving. If you don't make it past the check point, you have to take it to a test facility where it costs like $15 to get the emmissions checked so you can get a sticker.

      Grant I now live in the Ozarks and just bought a new 2003 Chevy Malibu so I don't have to worry about inspections or anything u

  • time to start educating idiots. (Score:5, Informative)

    by Lumpy ( 12016 ) on Saturday October 25, 2003 @02:37PM (#7309297) Homepage
    First these "black boxes" are nothing more than a small amount of flash memory that is written to when the airbag system is activated. if your car has airbags, then YOU HAVE THE RECORDER. [Add ominous evil soundtrack here]

    now, they record nothing unless the airbags are deployed. when they do they record vital data that the airbag system manufacturers need to continue to make airbag systems safer and save more lives, it's just that lawyers got wind of this and decided to start having the data used in court.

    The fun part is that the insurance companies started the trend. and you know what?? you crash your car, the insurance company can instantly get ownership of the car and data by simply "totaling it out" so they will now gladly give the data freely to the courts.

    you want an answer? A- remove the airbags and trigger sensors from your car... or B- drive like a sane person.

    those are your two choices..pick one.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • you want an answer? A- remove the airbags and trigger sensors from your car... or B- drive like a sane person.

      If I could've bought my truck without airbags, I would've. I suspect that removing/disabling the airbags (beyond using the key-operated passenger airbag switch on the dash) would land you in the same kind of hot water you'd get for removing or gutting a catalytic converter.

  • Why work on a mod? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    So you can drive like an asshole and get away with your actions when you lose control and kill some innocent bystander?

    Where's the 'right to drive', let alone the 'right to drive like an asshole and not answer for your actions' in the Constitution?

    Private pilots are tracked by ATC radar, etc. If they fly too low or where they aren't supposed to fly they get busted and aren't allowed to fly anymore.

    Assholes in cars kill at least 5x the number of innocent people a year that assholes with guns manage to kil

  • More information always helps truth (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Sheetrock ( 152993 ) on Saturday October 25, 2003 @02:38PM (#7309306) Homepage Journal
    I have more problems with the implementation than the idea.

    Black boxes in vehicles should be common knowledge, easily retrievable in a court case (preferably fitting a common standard), and tamperproof.

    The fault I find with them right now is that because most people don't know they're there it's more likely black box information would be used in cases against the owner rather than by the owner as concurring evidence to an accident report.

  • Your black box is not the only rat (Score:5, Insightful)

    by anubi ( 640541 ) on Saturday October 25, 2003 @02:39PM (#7309321) Journal
    There are many pieces of evidence left behind after an event.

    Tire marks. The amount of energy required to cause so much metal deformation. Distances airborne. Inertial effects. Witnesses. And I am sure there are many I did not think of.

    The black box evidence is just one of many. It will either confirm the other evidence, in which case you have some explaining to do, or it may exonerate you. ( i.e. you WERE driving a safe legal speed and the other party did in fact do a real lulu in front of you. ).

    My own take - its a non-issue. Every observable event will leave evidence. This is just one more of many trails left after an automotive accident event. You can really prejudice yourself by trying to tamper with the evidence.

  • Oh yes! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Mortanius ( 225192 ) on Saturday October 25, 2003 @02:39PM (#7309322) Homepage
    "Time to start working on the mod for my Toyota."

    Yes, let's disable these hideous things that invade our privacy! It isn't the police's right to know that you had the gas to the floor when you rear-ended the woman in front of you, killing her and her two kids. Let her insurance company try to put that theory forth, give you a chance!

    Please. These things record data that can be very useful in collision investigations, give the investigators an idea of what happened by letting them know what each car was doing at the time of impact. Seems like this could certainly help to reduce insurance costs if it helps show that you weren't at fault. Presumably, if collision data can be collected and recorded in a central repository it could help auto designers work on the safety systems of their cars as well. I mean, doing your own controlled crash tests are fine and well, but it would seem to me they'd cost a lot of money. Add in some real-world collisions to the mix and you can get a more useful picture.
    • The point is that, right now, only some drivers have them, and the people who don't have them can self-select. That's not a good situation.

      What do you do, for example, in an accident where one car has a blackbox recorder and it shows the car was speeding, while the other car doesn't have a recorder? It may have been speeding much more, but that may be much harder to prove.

      Furthermore, the information in these recorders can be used for other purposes: a private investigator can potentially find out how f

  • FUD Alert (Score:4, Informative)

    by jfmiller ( 119037 ) * on Saturday October 25, 2003 @02:42PM (#7309341) Homepage Journal
    from the article:


    "The prospect that we're all under constant scrutiny has social effects and legal effects that we haven't even contemplated," said Stephen Keating of the Privacy Foundation at the University of Denver.

    This is just plain wrong. The "black box" can only be used if/when the airbag deploys. Under any other circumstances it discards all information every 2 seconds. Even if it was to be removed from a parked car it would only tell the snoop that the car was stopped before it was shut off.

    Just to make sure everbody get the point:
    Monitering is not constant but only availible after an airbag deploying crash.

    JFMILLER
    • Agreed. I'm a privacy nut but I see no problem with black boxes who are used under such circumstances. As you said, the monitoring is not constant, I see no problem here.
  • Or very very very close to 100%. If I get into an accident on a 30 mph city street I certainly don't want the box to have a glitch that could cause it to quote the 65 mph I was legitimately doing 2 minutes ago on the highway, making it seem like I was going that fast in the couple seconds before the accident.

  • not a "Black Box" (Score:3, Informative)

    by Gray Elf ( 153941 ) on Saturday October 25, 2003 @02:55PM (#7309417)
    Before anyone gets there knickers in a bunch. These "Black Box"'s have been around for years. I know, i work for a car dealership in MD. And there was an article here about a year ago when everyone "first" heard about it. These computers are responsible for controlling all (if not most) of the electronic equipment in your car. They have been doing this since at least 1998 or 99. Most of your new cars have one in them. They record, on average, about the last 3-5 seconds of data for a technician to look at when you car is acting funny. The data is retrieved using a handheld device called a tech-2. At least that is the device we use here.

    Now, weather or not this data should be used to convict a reckless driver, I'll leave that up to the law makers and public opinion. But big brother is not watching. They are not there to catch you doing something wrong.
  • I don't really have an issue with this... even though I'm a dedicated speeder.

    BUT... what happens when the idiot in front of me with the 86 Chevy slams on his breaks and pulls across 3 lanes and hits me. Ooops, no computer for him, but I was doing 74 in a 65. Looks like it's obviously my fault.

  • Boat motors as well (Score:2, Informative)

    by dammy ( 131759 )
    Boat motors have had these for years now and they (as well as GPS systems) HAVE been submitted as evidence in fatal boat accidents.

    Dammy

  • EDR FAQ (Score:2, Informative)

    by dbCooper0 ( 398528 )
    Harris Technical Services [harristechnical.com] have a FAQ [harristechnical.com] that should clarify some of the issues raised here.

    Although I suppose their vehicle list [harristechnical.com] is not comprehensive, it's an interesting source of info.

  • You know, if the government was really so interested in knowing what you were doing, they have these things called "satellites"...

  • There is no such thing as dangerous driving in Montreal.....any Canadien can tell you it just is dangerous!

  • Chain of evidence (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Hamster Lover ( 558288 ) on Saturday October 25, 2003 @03:34PM (#7309610) Journal
    I would assume that the black box data was only one link in the chain of evidence. The article did not make that clear.

    Police have crash specialists that analyse crash sitations. All that expertise will not disappear simply because newer model cars are equipped with data collection devices. No credible professional investigator would rely completely on the black box data when recreating the crash scene. Any competent defense counsel would have a field day if a crash investigator relied soley on black box data if the physical evidence contradicted the data analysis alone.

    • ABS & black boxes (Score:3, Interesting)

      by nuggz ( 69912 )
      ABS when working properly gets rid of skid marks.
      This leaves much less evidence on how fast you were going.

      Additionally it might be interesting to see that someone hit the gas when they "accidentally" ran someone over.

  • How long before the cop... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Nom du Keyboard ( 633989 ) on Saturday October 25, 2003 @05:06PM (#7310142)
    How long before the cop just walks up, plugs a handheld into your car's standardized onboard access port (like they do for smog checks now), and it spits out a ticket with your exact speed, while recording a record for the court?

    How long after that before random checkpoints access this data without a cop seeing you apparently speeding first?

    How long before a wireless option is added and your car data is checked by unmanned roadside monitors and the ticket arrives in the mail? Or is just automatically debited?

    How long before they just automatically disable your car when you exceed your limit?

    How long...

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