IEEE Building Automotive Black-Box Standard

An anonymous submitter writes: "According to EE Times, the IEEE is working to develop an automotive black-box standard similar to what airplanes have. Forget Acme Rent-A-Car in Connecticut - get ready to have your insurance company jack your rates for going over 65mph."

Comments

Re:Rampant Paranoia

[u01000101]

To hell with the positive benefits of making cars safer in the long run...

I bet the black box won't help a bit to recover stolen cars... no sir, that's another department. It will surely monitor your driving habits and give the insurance companies more reasons to refuse to pay. It'll allow cops to trace you but won't help in pinpointing your position if you have an accident.

It's not that I don't have my tinfoil hat, it something called *REALITY*. Try it some time - it'll change the way you see the world.

Re:speed monitoring

[Sircus]

You *can* drive safely at 90. Try visiting Germany (I'm English, but I live in Germany) for a fine practical demonstration. Most of the Autobahnen have no speed limit. I regularly drive 100-110mph and I'm regularly overtaken (by people with better cars). The annual likelihood of an American driver being involved in a fatal accident are 1 in 4,503. For a German driver, they're 1 in 6,676.

People are that much more alert about changing lane, staying in the correct lane, etc., when there's a possibility there's a Mercedes in the lane they're changing to, travelling 50mph faster than they are.

Most road traffic accidents (and an even higher proportion of fatal accidents) don't occur on motorways. In the normal case, you have a crash on a motorway, there's going to be a 10 or 20mph (or in Germany, say, 50mph) speed difference between the two cars. Have a head-on crash on a road with a 30mph speed limit, you've got a 60mph speed difference. It's the small local roads that need the attention, not the motorways/highways/turnpikes/autobahnen/pick-your- word.