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

Networked?

[gehrehmee]

Why on the internet? Even airplane black boxes don't appear to be hooked up for communication of any kind, otherwise people wouldn't be so concerned with finding them after a crash.

Why can't this be a similarly autonomous data-gathering device? If there's any need for it outisde of crash data recovery, clearly there's a different purpose involved.

Re:Networked?

[kbonin]

Its not so much that they want them on the Internet, its that they want them to upload the buffer on response to certain criteria, and eventually the ability to remote query them.

After that, its only a matter of time before the Patriot act is ammended to include access to this data...

It should also be noted that if you check the fine print of your OnStar paperwork, this capability already exists, with no significant privacy warrantees, including no promise to require any warrant to access the data. In fact, according to a broad interpretation of my paperwork, there's nothing to prevent any OnStar employee from calling into my car at any time and browsing data, including where I am via the integrated GPS, possibly even turning on the in-car microphone and listening in. If you think these capabilities don't exist, look up the 'in-car speakerphone' and 'unlock my car by telephone' (through call to OnStar, which then calls your car) features of the system...

Re:Networked?

[swordboy]

Why on the internet?

Well,

For one thing, automobiles can participate in a massive data acquisition if their control systems are allowed to communicate. For example, if there are many cars with ABS are having activations at a certain section of road (obtained with a GPS), then the data could be analyzed by a central computer that could send out a "slippery road warning warning" and possibly even dispatch a salt truck. This goes for *all sorts* of stuff from traffic congestion to potholes. They can all be detected with the sensors on most cars these days.

I'm really looking for a standard but I'm afraid that Microsoft is already pushing their goons into it. If Linux doesn't just quickly, then MS will tie their software into another piece of hardware with a "DirectCAR API" or something. This is big.

Imagine that you pull into your garage and the bluetooth link (used to monitor tire pressure) on your car's computer tells your home PC that it is time for an oil change. With an internet connection, your home PC could look up the closest oil change joints and find you an opening (and maybe a coupon). If Linux doesn't step in, then MS will have a piece of these kind of transactions. Not good (but very smart of them).

Easy solution

[Merovign]

Buy car. Buy Taser. Unplug unit. Apply 120,000 volts. Plug unit back in. Drive in privacy. (Ignore warning light optional.)

Of course, if you hack it, even better.

Personally, I'll stick to upgraded older cars. I prefer 5-points to airbags anyway.

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.

Some already have it

[alanjstr]

"Eleven of the 45 companies that build passenger cars worldwide already use some kind of black-box technology, according to representatives of the IEEE. The best-known of those is General Motors Corp., which said three years ago that it includes the device, known as a sensing and diagnostics module, as part of its airbag sensing systems on most GM vehicles. The module can store such information as engine speed, vehicle speed, airbag deployment, seat belt deployment and the state of the brakes before and during an accident. "

Its just not a standard yet.

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.

This has been done before

[jrp2]

This was done secretly a while back by the NTSB. While studying the data they noticed something intersting. In almost all states an average of 86.7% of the driver's last words before an accident were "OH SHIT". The only exception was Tennessee where in 63.2% of the accidents the last words were "Hey Bubba, watch this" ;)

Sorry, couldn't resist.

Re:Wrong Impression!

[tbo]

The way it worked in this test program was a small monitor would gauge your speed (now that I think about it, another monitor guaging breaking habits could also be useful) such that if you were obeying the speed limits, you would get a discount on your insurance.

What a fucking moron you are. I bet you think it's great when pizza places offer free delivery, but a discount on pick-up orders. Don't you see there's no difference between offering a discount to those who choose option X (and of course raising prices overall), versus penalizing those who choose Y, without raising prices.

Also, basing insurance pricing on driving speed is only slightly less unfair than basing it on age and gender. Consider two drivers:

Driver A is a professional race-car driver, and, when he's driving his personal car (which is probably very well maintained, and chosen for optimal handling), he tends to go 5-10 mph over the limit.

Driver B is an octagenarian with mild Parkinson's, and a car almost as old as he is. He tends to drive 5 mph below the limit.

Who's safer? Who would you rather have on the road? Driver A has amazing reflexes, excellent situational awareness, and a well-handling car with good brakes. Driver B's reaction times are probably four times longer, and he probably can't remember the last time he had his brakes done.

This is, of course, an extreme example, but I think it illustrates how ridiculous it is to use an automated device collecting only one or two statistics to decide insurance rates.

A more moderate example:
When weather and traffic conditions are good, and the road allows good visibility (no blind corners, etc.), I tend to drive a little over the speed limit. When conditions are bad, I slow down significantly. Contrast this with people who always drive the speed limit, even when the road is wet or icy, and you'll see that my driving habits are a lot safer.

Worried about being fined for speeding?

[Decimal]

Hey, I've found a neat way to avoid getting speeding tickets. Here's how it works. It turns out that on almost any public road there will occassionally be little white signs on the side that have a number on them. There's also this little indicator behind the steering wheel that has its own number that goes up or down depending on how hard you push the gas pedal.

Now here's the trick: If you make sure the number on this "speedometer" doesn't exceed the numbers on these "speed limit" signs, you can cruise right on past the cops and they don't even seem to notice you! Just leave a few minutes earlier and you can get to where you're going on time without anybody stopping you to harass you about your velocity. Works like a charm!

Psst, don't tell too many people. The cops might start to catch on that we've found a way to avoid them. Heh, those suckers.

/attempt at humor>

There's a Reason for That

[Greyfox]

In Germany you actually have to be able to drive before being given a drivers license. Getting a driver's license there is a significant investment of time, energy and money.

Here they'll give any nimrod who walks in the door a license. I used to live down in Florida and they always had horror stories like the one about the 86 year old lady who was legally blind and failed her driving test 26 times before finally managing to do well enough to get a license. You can't go flying down I95 at 90mph because someone like that will cut you off doing 45mph. Of course, that doesn't stop people from flying down I95 at 90mph...

There are sections of interstate near my house where the average speed of traffic is 90-100 mph and those speeds are not intimidating as long as you've got a mile or so of visibility to see what traffic's doing ahead of you. Most of the drivers on the road here don't pay enough attention to be able to maintain such speeds safely. I don't think the ever-popular SUV will ever be safe at those speeds. Especially with the driver yacking on a cell phone.

It would be easily possible to actually monitor and ticket every car on the road going over the speed limit but if that happened here in the states, the speed limits would be quickly raised or eliminated on the highways, since it'd piss off literally every driver in the country, and almost all those drivers are eligable to vote. Selective enforcement, while technically illegal, works fine for keeping most drivers to within 10-20 mph over the posted speed limits.

The arbitrary nature of the speed limits are a pain in the ass though. I've been dinged for going 20 over the speed limit at 2 in the morning with no other cars on the road. And you can't argue that, even though road conditions were perfect for it. And I've seen people doing the posted speed limit in conditions where that was extremely dangerous. I'd like to see road conditions play more of a part, but I guess you can't trust many of the drivers on the road here to be able to judge them correctly.