Drivers to be notified of vehicular black boxes in 2011
By Darren Murph 
posted Aug 22nd 2006 2:40PM
posted Aug 22nd 2006 2:40PM
Since the National Transportation Safety Board "recommended" that all new vehicles be equipped with some form of black box -- more appropriately known as an Event Data Recorder (EDR) -- manufacturers have slowly but surely been sneaking them in. Deliberately or otherwise, a vast majority of automakers have neglected to inform customers that their vehicle has such a device installed in it, and as you'd probably expect, it's driving privacy advocates up the wall. As these EDR boxes become more popular, some form of control and notification system apparently needed to be devised, thus the NTSB stepped in and threw down some uniform regulations. Beginning in 2011, all automakers must include "information in the owner's manual" about the specific data that the EDR collects. Fortunately for car companies, the mandate goes a step further by standardizing the data collected by each box, so everyone's privacy is invaded equally. We'll just have to wait and see if those newly disclosed deets include a step by step guide to de-activating the [Via Slashdot]
It's ok really, most Americans seem happy to live in what is becoming a Police State as long as they can get a Super Value meal at Mickey D's and watch the latest episode of Survivor.
How long till there is a DIY to reset maxint on your MPH logger to 55? :-)
These devices are a GOOD THING. The data collected from real world crashes (instead of lab crashes) are leading to huge improvements in automotive safety. You know that so called ACE body structure that Honda brags about in all their adds? Where do you think they got the data to design that?
Please note, while this second comment is also from "Jason" I'm a different Jason. He's the one in the tinfoil hat.
Look, I don't have a particular view one way or the other about these black boxes, but before a bunch of people go spewing forth about how we're living in an Orwellian police state, would one of you please either READ Orwell or go VISIT a police state? A black box used for accident reconstruction is not the same as living in a place where the POLICE rape your daughter in front of you until they can get you to confess to writing a pamphlet speaking out on human rights which, by the way, you didn't even write. That's a police state.
It's like all those knuckleheads who parade out in front of political conventions carrying signs decrying the death of free speech and protest in this country. Seriously, did they have some sort of operation to REMOVE their sense of irony?
--Jason (the one who feels like life here is one whole helluva lot better than in Cuba/North Korea/or 1980's era USSR)
Wow first 3 post sum it all up. Americans have been very happily handing back their civil rights for the last several years. Hopefully this data will belong to the owner and authorities will need a warrent or owners permission to access it.
But of course there will be many hacks coming and in reaction it will no doubt become illegal to tamper with the data.
@Jason #2
Gee, and here I thought it might be a good idea to stop the erosion of out rights somewhere short of that. But if you really think we should wait until it gets to that point I suppose we can. We're certainly working slowly up to it.
So how long will it be before this little black box gets me a ticket in the mail for not wearing my seatbelt? Don't get me wrong, I'm all about making safe products, but in my book this steps over the line.
I don't see the problem here ... ?
If two cars crash and you want to determine who's to blame, så the innocent party isn't punished erroneously?
If some schmuck goes speeding and kills a dad with two-year old daughter (happened here within the last six months), wouldn't you want to be able to nail the sucker?
The only "problem" with this thing is if people willfully break the law (speeding, etc.), then it's not your friend, but then neither am I.
Makes a lot of sense to me ...
- Jakob
Any particular reason why they're waiting until 2011 to do this? I'm not saying I either agree or disagree with the principle but it seems really odd they can't put the warning in all new printed manuals and make sure all of them carry the warning by the end of the year...
@calebc,
Fair enough, you're a slippery slope guy. I get it. We're "slowly working our way there". You'll learn at:
http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/edr-site/history.html
that EDRs were first used in the 1970s, and presumably a diehard civil libertarian would have raised the alarm and the slippery slope argument then.
We're now more than three decades later and as far as I know there are no "prisoners of conscience" who've been locked up because their EDRs tracked them going to an anti-government rally.
My calculus is not as good as it once was, so help me out with figuring the rate of change here. 30 years into this and you can still burn the President in effigy in Washington DC. By your calculation how much longer (at this current rate) till my aforementioned "actual police state" scenario of policemen raping one's daughter in one's presence to extract a false confession is likely to transpire?
I'm not being sarcastic, it's a serious and legitimate question. I know some people see every advance in technology and every government power as an inevitable progression toward the fabled police state, and they've been saying it for 300 years. So I want to know when I'm actually going to need to register for my bar code, cause darn it if I don't feel like all my freedoms are still intact.
--Jason
@calebc,
Fair enough, you're a slippery slope guy. I get it. We're "slowly working our way there". You'll learn at:
http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/edr-site/history.html
that EDRs were first used in the 1970s, and presumably a diehard civil libertarian would have raised the alarm and the slippery slope argument then.
We're now more than three decades later and as far as I know there are no "prisoners of conscience" who've been locked up because their EDRs tracked them going to an anti-government rally.
My calculus is not as good as it once was, so help me out with figuring the rate of change here. 30 years into this and you can still burn the President in effigy in Washington DC. By your calculation how much longer (at this current rate) till my aforementioned "actual police state" scenario of policemen raping one's daughter in one's presence to extract a false confession is likely to transpire?
I'm not being sarcastic, it's a serious and legitimate question. I know some people see every advance in technology and every government power as an inevitable progression toward the fabled police state, and they've been saying it for 300 years. So I want to know when I'm actually going to need to register for my bar code, cause darn it if I don't feel like all my freedoms are still intact.
--Jason
I can understand complaining about things like wiretapping without a warrant, but something like this is reasonable.
If you're that worried about it, maybe you shouldn't be hitting small children at twice the speed limit. Of course if it collects GPS info, then it becomes an invasion of privacy and I'm against it.
Otherwise it's just another tool for police to convict asshole drivers.
Quit da whining all you babies........ sheeeeesh!
There will soon be some nice folks who will unplug "big bro" from your car. :-)
Like just go find that thingie and give it a good swift wack with a sledge hammer.....dang!
Ok whenever something new comes out about invasion of privacy i think to myself "what do i have to hide?" People all around are always screaming about that it doesnt matter if you're hiding something, that you have a right to your privacy. Now im not in favor of a completely monitored society, but that's not what we're talking about, and the slippery slope arguement is TOTAL bs. I'm sorry, but using that kinda logic to dictate why note to put something like this in cars that potentially saves lives, is totally idiotic. Sure it may eventually be used to keep people from breaking the speed limit, but SO WHAT?!?!? You want to drive FAST once in a while? Well what if you wanted to kill once in a while? Is that ok? Laws are laws, and sure i speed now and again, but if i KNEW i had one of these in my car, and knew that i'd get busted for speeding, you sure as better believe i'd be driving the speed limit all the time, and that's just another life saving benefit.
I do however believe that there would need to be some flaws worked out if that was the case, one such flaw is that in southern california we have racelegal races in the parking lots of major stadiums and they are tottaly sanctioned during these events to race. Now if a car didnt know this, it might think you're breaking the law. If certain things like this could be worked out, then more power, just another tool to keep us safe from all the stupid drunk drivers out there.
Heck if you ask me, everyone should have a breathalyzer in their car to keep it from starting unless they're under the legal limit. Another invasion of privacy?
My point simply is that if you have nothing to hide, what does it matter?
We need to protect merryKa fom all dem terriers. Tap da phones, gps da cars, and everyone needs identity chips for a safer merryKa. amen...
I am just curious since its only a recommended feature can the consumer recommended them not to install it or unistall it at the dealership?
Just another tool for the insurance industry to screw you over with. "Oh, this person was speeding 10 miles over the speed limit, we are not going to cover the accidents caused by their illegal actions."
The real question is, does it send out your data, or simply collect it? I mean, if it is just like a black box in an airplane, the ONLY reason anyone would know what's in it is after you crash. What's wrong with that?
The thing to be wary of, however, is if they try to slip in devices to wireless signals out with the data. Not that I think they'd actually, do it, but if you wanna wear the tinfoil hat, at least be smart about it.
A black box DOES NOT invade privacy if all it does is collect data.
"A black box DOES NOT invade privacy if all it does is collect data."
When you have no control over the boxes contents, but a state trooper/insurance agent/manufacturer warranty technician can access the information at will, it is an invasion of privacy.
Officer: Sir, I pulled you over for a burned out tail light. Oh, and by the way, I'm going to need to plug my PDA into that socket under your steering wheel and download your driving history.
You tinfoil hat wearing whiners are idiots. Like Joe said these things just collect data. Last I checked driving is done on PUBLIC roads so if you're driving twice the speed limit and a cop nails you with his radar gun is that an invasion of privacy? "DAMNIT! I WAS IN THE PRIVACY OF MY CAR!!? INVASION OF PRIVACY!!!"
These data collectors are a good thing. The data collected will be used to improve automotive safety and SAVE LIVES!
"A black box DOES NOT invade privacy if all it does is collect data"
That depends how much data it collects, and who can access it. Let say it collects the last year of driving history (a small amount of storage really). And, you had a crash because some idiot hit your car in a parking lot. Great, your insurance company could verify you weren't moving when the accident occurred (therefore you weren't at fault).
But, what if they could cancel your insurance at the same time because they saw you had been speeding 20 times over the last year?
I personally couldn't care less if the police have the ability to access it -- because I'm sure the right set of checks&balances would end up being put in place.
I'm more afraid of people like the insurance companies having access to it -- because America has no privacy controls at all on information (outside of law enforcement, legal, and your SSN).
I was thinking the same thing as hedghogz. Are you telling me they already have the 2010 manuals printed and can't possibly add it any sooner?
I also find it kind of funny that people here think that how fast you drive has any significant statistical correlation to how safe you drive (or how many lives are lost).
If I drive 80 and pay attention, and someone else is driving 65 while talking on their cellphone, which of us is more likely to get in an accident? Which of us could be convicted by the little black box?
Problem is, the black boxes don't measure whether you are driving safely, which is what really matters (and, yes, if there were a way to measure that, I wouldn't have a problem with the black box).
So what if you need to speed, say to get out of a dangerous situation? Think lorries colliding right behind you on the motorway/freeway or overtaking a dangerous driver to avoid a collision.
Did any of you tinfoil hat wearers read the CNN article? The device only starts recording right before and soon after the crash. Not whenever you're driving. This is going to lead to great leaps in automotive safety so I say F the ACLU (or as I like to call them, the American Communist and Leftist Union)
I just bought a Toyota Yaris and, while the owner's manual is at home and I can't remember specifics, it does have a section detailing my little black box. Basically it records speed at time of impact, whether or not the airbags deployed, whether the brakes were engaged, etc. It also states that it is the property of Toyota and they will not divulge the data unless forced to (or something like that).
Invasion of privacy my rear-end. Currently these only measure the last 20 seconds of driving and thus will only be useful to look at after accidents, helping the police find which, if any driver, is at fault.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1223380,00.html
I agree with all these "tinfoil hat" wearers. I don't have anything to hide, so I'm sure wouldn't be incriminated by this. That's not the point to the argument. I don't understand how so many people are willingly allowing governmental branches to supervise their daily activities. I want the ability to go some where and have no one know where I've been and what I did or how many stop signs I rolled through on the way there. I'd agree that this is a slippery slope that we're travelling on and most people are too willing to allow the government to track them. No one else see's this as ridiculous? I've got an idea, an infared camera that goes in your house and transmits itself to "private company" that monitors your house, but of course they'll just use the temperature monitor on it in case fire. You think that when they start putting these things in cars that they'll only be used to monitor "impacts". You must be kidding me? Soon the only safe place will be within your own head. ( Yes that was an allusion to Orwell)
I hate to disappoint the conspiracy theorist and those desiring justice ,but these so called “black boxes” don’t record what or as much as you might think. I’ve spent the last several years doing accident investigation for NHTSA and have retrieved the information from hundreds of these data recorders. The recorders were primarily designed for use by the manufacture to further safety engineering and to determine any possible causes for airbag failure if one was to occur.
The information they collect differ by auto manufacture, but the most common data recorders used today record whether or not the drivers seatbelt was latched, wheel rotation, and whether the brake indicator was depressed at the time of airbag deployment. The rest of the information collected has to do with vehicle deceleration, barrier equivalent at impact, and air bag deployment time, and the number ignition cycles to deployment.
One key thing you should know is that theses recorders constantly record and reset every aprox.5 to 13 seconds, and only do a permanent capture of the prior seconds if the airbag deploys
As far as use by law enforcement, they must obtain a search warrant before downloading information from the vehicle data recorder. And, once they get the information there usually disappointed. The information does not hold up in court.
Just for example, the recorder captures wheel rotation which is often incorrect from actual speed during many collisions…… If your vehicle hit a patch of ice or jumped a curb just prior to airbag deployment, the wheel would freely spin, thus increasing the wheel rotation. I’ve seen data pulled from vehicles where the speed was calculated at 200 plus miles per hour prior to impact on collisions that barely met the minimum front impact deployment criteria. That’s just one example why the info never holds up in court.
The other problem being that only a few vehicle manufactures use data recorders that give actual variables such as the ones listed above. Most manufactures still record the data in hexadecimal and is virtually unusable to law enforcement or accident investigators like myself. Most manufactures will not provide the government a way to translate the numbers. Trust me, I’ve been there.
For the record, these devices are known as EDR’s, The media created the term black box, which still gets the kind of reaction their looking for.
For those of you interested in how your vehicle may have performed in real world collisions, I’ve included a link to a little known government data base that profiles many real world collisions including scene photo’s, vehicle damage, injury reports and autopsy information about occupants killed in many of these collisions. You can search by many different variables, but you get the most complete information by leaving them set to all, except for vehicle make and year.
http://www-nass.nhtsa.dot.gov/BIN/NASSCASELIST.EXE/SETFILTER
Tull are you a moron!? All this does is record key points of data right before and after a crash. Other than that it's off. It dosen't record where you go or how many stop signs you go through etc. GO PUT ON YOUR TINFOIL HAT!
@Jason #2
Fair enough, you're a Straw Man guy. I realize that I have let down my fellow "diehard civil libertarians" by failing to dispute this 4 years before I was born. I am a failure. What can I say? "Oops! sorry!"
I don't know about the laws in DC, but where I live not only would burning the president in effigy get you thrown in jail, you can get locked up for lighting a cigarette. Not because smoking is illegal, but because open air fires are. You can also be arrested charged and convicted of a drunk in public charge without so much as a breathalyzer. It is left entirely to the discretion and judgement of the arresting officer and then judge.
I'm just happy for you that you get such a warm fuzzy feeling of safety when *you* walk down the street. What can I say? I'm a bit jealous.
How can it record data right BEFORE a crash if it isn't constantly recording data?
If it knows when a crash is about to occur, I'd be the first one to sign up for it.
@ Calebc....
where do you live, and why havent you left yet?
@Timmy
You asked exactlyt he question I wanted to ask of Calebc -- I'm really wondering where he lives!
@calebc
I did not criticize YOU for not protesting this back then. In fact I said that I was quite sure that some of your compatriots certainly had done so (even if you were not yet born). What I did say was that if this is a slippery slope it certainly must be sloping toward some apocalyptic valley, and I'm curious to know how long you think that slope is.
If something is sloping at .005% and we're moving along it at 1 mph and the hillside (at .005% incline) runs 400,000,000 miles, then I have to tell you, I'm not terribly nervous about what's at the bottom of it. I'll let someone 10,000 years from now stop to reassess whether it's a problem.
The more likely scenario is that either the particular issue (such as I believe is the case with this one) is not actually a privacy concern. If it is a privacy concern, then it's worth considering that society spends a lot more time on sine curves than it does on slippery slopes. Imagine yourself looking at a point along the top of a sine curve. If you zoom in enough so you're just seeing 1/4 of the full movement it would indeed look like you're on a slope. But as things start to move in that direction, lo and behold it turns a corner and modulates in the other direction.
Such has always been the case with civil liberties in this country. Lincoln suspecnded habeus corpus in 1861 and you know what -- after the war it returned. How much do you want to bet that at the time people wrung their hands that this was the beginning of the end of freedom in America. Now that actually WAS a reduction in civil rights -- whether or not you feel it was justified by the times. But it turns out it was not a slippery slope at all. It was a sine curve, it inflected, and today we're free to argue and bloviate about EDRs.
Finally, @dmf, "I also find it kind of funny that people here think that how fast you drive has any significant statistical correlation to how safe you drive (or how many lives are lost)."
If you really don't think that the same driver, on the same roads and facing the same traffic conditions, is equally likely to be in an accident driving 40 mph or 80 mph then you clearly don't understand physics.
If your argument is that one driver at 80 may be safer than another at 40, then I agree, but the fact is that until we come up with a way of issuing driver's licenses restricted by some "net stupidity quotient" on a per person basis, the speed limit and other traffic laws are the best proxy.
As such, if nothing else changes about someone's driving behavior (i.e. the same knucklehead yaks on their cell phone at whatever speed) then reducing speeds from 80 to 65 will absolutely reduce collisions and save lives.
-Jason
@ 35821;
Did you just read the first sentence and go straight to flaming? I never said that these particular models will be used for tracking, but that a locater will be the next step, in case of "emergencies". Read before you decide to spew ignorance.
As drivers of the cars are we not also the creators of the data? And, if so, are we not the copyright owners of the data? If it's the driver's intelectual property doesn't he or she control it's use?
The current crop of recorders are always recording; they only stop when there's a crash. At that time, the previous (x) seconds of driving history are available.
The intent of this was for the manufacturers to collect data on real crashes and find ways to improve their product. Nothing evil here.
But at the same time, this enables law enforcement, insurance investigators, etc. to find out what you were doing for the last (x) seconds before the accident. So now you can get penalized for speeding even when nobody saw you doing it.
What bothers me is the insurance industry's attitude about this. They trumpet about how gauging the actions of driver will allow them to grant reductions to safe drivers. But this eats at the core of what insurance is supposed to be. The idea behind insurance is that a group shares the risk so that everyone pays a small price and the few that suffer a loss are covered. But if they monitor and adjust the premiums so that safe drivers pay little and risky drivers pay a lot - then where's the social benefit in insurance?
It looks to this imperfect observer that the insurance industry is trying to eliminate all the social benefits of insurance. Bad driver? Pay for your losses yourself. So there's no social benefit, but they keep collecting premiums - and you can't stop paying because there's laws that require you to keep buying insurance. Ultimately, this leads to an industry who collects payments under penalty of law and pays out next to nothing.
So these vehicle recorders aren't a big deal in and of themselves. But they enable a much worse problem that will cost each and every driver in the future.
@Whuffo
You raise interesting points about insurance. The question, though, is whether insurance is intended to protect us from our own bad behavior. I would say it is not.
First off, insurance is all about the process of risk splitting, taking a large population and dividing it into sub-populations based on riskiness, then pricing accordingly. If you smoke, you'll pay more for life insurance because the likelihood of your behavior causing an earlier death is high. If you sky dive, same deal.
Habitual speeding is an indicator of higher likelihood to file accident claims, therefore speeding tickets have always led to higher insurance premiums. Accidents themselves are a predictor of further accidents, so that too will raise your rates.
The group benefit of insurance, to the extent there is one, should be for alleviating risks which are not of our own making. Catastrophic health crises, for example, that a normal person would be unable to pay for, can be pooled amongst a large enough group that each of us pays only a small fraction. I realize that in health insurance we each also subsidize bad behaviors (I pay more because people in my company smoke or skydive) but it's not why I buy medical insurance. I buy medical insurance so that if I or one of my family members has a medical catastrophe we can afford to address it.
As a driver with a very clean record, I'd prefer to buy insurance from a company that risk splits. There's no incentive for me to want to pay twice as much just to subsidize the risky behavior of a habitual speeder who can't learn to use their cell phone headset.
That speeder, in turn, has an incentive to clean up his act because doing so will earn him lower insurance rates.
The more insurance companies charge people directly for their controllable risk behaviors, the cheaper insurance will be as a whole. It might be more $$ for the few risky people, but over time paying for that risk will cause enough of them to reduce their risky behaviors that in the end the entire amount spent on insurance will decline.
--Jason
Hmm, in the manual for my 2006 Audi I noticed a part that specifically stated there was no data recording / EDR system on board... interesting...
@ Whuffo
"But if they monitor and adjust the premiums so that safe drivers pay little and risky drivers pay a lot - then where's the social benefit in insurance?"
Ummm...perhaps the risky drivers will LEARN TO DRIVE BETTER, or will not be complete idiots by driving too fast? What is the social benefit of insurance now? Oh, that's right, it's so the idiotic college/high school students who feel like it's their right to drag race and drive recklessly can say "Oh, it's all right. If something happens SOMEONE ELSE WILL PAY."
Do you see what I'm saying? All insurance does now is to defer penalties away from the responsible party.
@all tinfoil hat wearers
You are all quite ridiculous. It has already been stated that the box only saves about 20 seconds of driving. Also, it has already been stated that the police can't just walk up to your car and take your data. In fact, from the sounds of it, it doesn't even save ANY data UNLESS you crash. NOT ONLY THAT, but it is ALREADY EQUIPPED in 64% of 2005 car models, so it's NOT LIKE THIS IS SOMETHING NEW.
Go find something else to whine about. This is not an invasion of privacy.
I don't hate but I don't really like it much either but hopefully something will come up to make it voluntary.
These EDRs can be of big help especially during crash investigations, but privacy advocates have raised concerns that the information gathered by the black box could be misused. They got a point there.