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Automakers and Crash Data Recorders
The New York Times has a decent story about automakers not wanting to standardize car data recorders. There are a couple of nuances which the reporter mostly misses. The automakers want to avoid standardization because they can then sell access to the proprietary data format (NYT does cover this, but ignores the profit motive). The story mentions privacy issues but dismisses them as solved, yet notes that there are no privacy protections whatsoever for this data, and you can expect it to be used against you in any incident (and perhaps other times: wait until service under your warranty is refused because your car reported your bad driving habits to the dealer). That's not "solved" in my book (and I think the automakers realize that selling cars which report on their owners might backfire). Speculation about ambulance crews using crash data is just hype - no ambulance is equipped to do that, nor would I want an EMT to spend time decoding the crash data instead of, say, saving my life. The article repeatedly suggests that crash data would be used to enhance safety, without ever specifying how that is supposed to occur.
Why doesn't anyone post these links in the original article?
~Idarubicin
The original poster is correct. EMS crews have many things to do in the field, and finding some little plug on a crushed vehicle so they can gather data (that will probably NOT be useful at the hospital) is NOT a priority.
This is just one more thing that can break down, and get lost/stolen, dead batteries, etc. Many medics will bring me a polariod of the vehicle the patient was in... that's about all I need, in addition to some other basic info about the crash. Medics are trained to gather this kind of thing already; it's dogma in the care of the blunt trauma patient.
How much intrusion into the passenger compartment?
Restrained? (seat belt)
Air bag deployed?
Did anyone in the vehicle not survive?
Prolonged extrication time?
Ejected from the vehicle?
Was it a rollover accident?
etc.
Hospital personell are trained to consider these factors, not that the vehicle was traveling at 37.8MPH at the time of collision... Physicians are, for the most part, not engineers; they are not trained to translate that information into something clinically useful. Further, other factors (how much slack in the seatbelt, etc) will obfuscate the usefulness of that measurement.
Most "mechanism of injury" info is only useful to raise or lower your clinical suspicion for certain types of injuries. You'd still try to treat the patient, not the number.
All that aside, I think a good open standard for these recorders would be a good thing... just not for EMS reasons.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
I'm an EMT and I see alot of car crashes. I can tell you that this would be just about useless to us in the field. The simple fact is we don't have time to analyze the data and the computer couldn't tell us anything that can't be seen by looking at the crashed cars themselves. Another thing is that ALL motor vehicle accidents are considered "significant mechanism of injury" meaning that while we will do what we can to help our number one priority is to get the patient to the hospital as soon as possible.
One final thought. Most ambulances these days are run by for profit services. These services use the cheapest/smallest trucks they can find and keep only the absolute minimum equipment required by law on board. So, unless it becomes required by law it would never make its way onto the vast majority of ambulances
Geez you are such a troll.
It IS true that RFID tags are used in tires, just not passenger car tires. I am a retired chip designer and have worked on several designs of these. One of them even had a Goodyear blimp as part of the logo, the work was funded in part by Goodyear.
One important application of RFID tags is for TRUCK tires in fleets. These are very expensive tires and (I am told) the tags are coupled with pressure sensors to help drivers and maintenance personnel read pressures on the tires they can't see. This is something of an inventory control problem, for which RFID tags are particular well suited.
Sure, you can imagine a day when we all are are tracked by our tire signatures at US borders, right now that is just a rejected XFiles script.
%Gotta sig?
No match.
First of all, the cars in question, the Audi 5000 were not V8's, they were 5 cylinders. The 5 cylinders also had a recall for "idle stabilizers" though, as did the VW Quantum (same engine). Furthermore, this problem started well before 1990.
However, these people claimed they were pressing the brake and the car kept going faster. Audi 100% disproved this theory by putting members of the press in Audis, driving them down a steepish hill and flooring the gas and brake at the same time. The cars stopped. They didn't go faster, they didn't remain the same speed.
On all cars the brakes are more powerful than the engine. If you press the brake hard as these people say they did, the car STOPS. There is only one logical conclusion. Since these cars in question didn't have clutches, they much have had their feet on another pedal, the accelerator.
One common unit from Vetronics can read out both GM and Ford airbag units. As of 2001, the other manufacturers weren't on board on this. It's just a little adapter box that plugs a laptop into the airbag unit.
The certification course for learning how to read out this data costs $250, not $5000, as someone else suggested. The Vetronics hardware and software, though, costs about $2500, not including the Windows laptop required.
When the airbag fires, the following data is stored:
Airbag units first started recording this data in some 1991 models, but it wasn't widespread until 1996.
Even from a wrecked vehicle, you can usually read out this data, although it may be necessary to pull the airbag controller from the vehicle.
Now that's just crash data. It's often possible to read out other units of the vehicle system as well, usually via the SAE J1978 OBD-II diagnostic connector near the steering column. This is more useful for diagnosing engine problems than for crash analysis.
More recent vehicles have a whole LAN on board, with many units that can be read out. Newer heavy trucks use a standardized SAE J1939 LAN (250Kb/s), and even have a network bridge between the tractor and the trailer. Engine/transmission/brake coordination, plus many auxiliary functions, takes place over that network. Some agricultural implements talk that protocol, too.
Incidentally, if anybody is into J1939 protocol stacks, please contact me. I need one, with source.
That is not entirely correct. I posted that over a year ago. I am currently a junior in high school and I am also a member of the Harvard, MA EMT squad. My highschool has a special state varience allowing students under the age of 18 to become licensed EMTs. I have no particular way of proving this to you save to say its the truth.
I work in this industry and spent a stint doing just this sort of thing. I put some of the first data loggers on a certain auto makers certain sport ute.
Its there, and its never in the past been for improving the performance. Just for saying, you were going x MPH, you had no seatbelt on, and our airbag DID deploy properly and on time.
Lotus owners find this out the hard way...
My wife used to work for the local Lotus/Jaguar dealership (she was the warranty clerk) and when you bring in a lotus for service they check your computer. It records everything you do and if you redline the engine (something that you are just itching to do with that much horsepower, not matter hose shortlived, in that small of a car) you warranty is VOID. No questions asked.
If I recall they didn't have a lot of warranty claims on lotus' (or is that Loti?). Which had plenty of probs especially since you can't put the hammer down for more that like 10 or 15 seconds at a time because you'll overheat the turbo.