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Black Box in Speeder's Car Helped Conviction
sessamoid writes "This article in Newhouse News tells the story of a man who was recently convicted of two counts of manslaughter and vehicular homicide each, partially on evidence obtained from the Electronic Data Recorder (EDR) in the car. EDR's are found in all cars with airbags to measure the performance and effectiveness of the airbags and the conditions in which they are used. In this case, the EDR revealed that the driver was not travelling at 60 mph, as he claimed, but actually peaked at 114 mph (in a residential neighborhood) just seconds before the collision. Could this be the forerunner of many such cases in the future, where our cars tell the unadulterated facts, rather than subjective personal accounts?"
"Could this be the forerunner of many such cases in the future, where our cars tell the unadulterated facts, rather than subjective personal accounts?"
Yeah, for about 3 weeks before an EDR modchip hits the market that reports whatever you want it to report.
-Rylfaeth
I understand some of the privacy pundits bitching all around about how this is an "invasion of privacy." However, the 5 seconds leading up to a crash can provide important data for the manufacturers and accident investagators...particularly if the driver of the car is killed in the crash.
;)
It's interesting that it has the top speed recorded, which is kinda the death blow in this case. In most speed-related auto collisions, law enforcement goes by road conditions and skid marks to determine the speed of the vehicle at impact. Imagine the mess if that were a child running after a ball...
Personally, I'm glad this guy is going to prison. There is no excuse for excessive speed in a residential neighborhood...especially when that exceeded by a factor of four. That's what they built highways for!
// Agent Green (Ian / IU7 / KB1JQO)
// IEEE 802.3: All 10base Are Belong To Us
Cross a few wires oops, no more EDS. ;)
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
One of the other things they don't want you to know about the EDR. If the wheels leave the ground for any reason, like hitting a bump or going off a cliff, the wheels can spin freely. There is nothing in the sensors that tell if the tires are on the ground. If they are spinning off the ground, they will record a very high speed that has nothing to do with actual forward motion.
I wonder if there was any other evidence that showed that he was going 114mph? I doubt if they felt it was not needed. Computers never make mistakes, do they?
"Trademarks are the heraldry of the new feudalism."
You are presuming guilt. "This guy is a sleazebag and it was okay to violate his privacy".
The use of these things for determining the facts in an accident is valid, but thinking that tools like these are okay simply because they are only used on bad people is dangerous.
[Set Cain on fire and steal his lute.]
I doubt that the EDS has the memory for long-term storage of data. It is designed to collect data from the past x amount of time, overwriting old data, unless the airbag is deployed, in which case it will start saving data. It probably has a reserved section for data to be stored in after the airbag is deployed.
Regardless of the specifics, you would have to stop your car immediately after getting a ticket, have it towed someplace, and then let it sit there until your court day, because the data pertaining to your actual alleged offense would get overwritten.
Now, a car containing an EDS with expanded capabilities, like a button on the dash to backup the current data when you get pulled over, would be interesting, but the more user friendly black boxes become, the more hacker friendly they become as well. I doubt a court would allow a black box as evidence if the driver has any input to it, even if it is simply a hardwired 'save' command.
Of course, I disagree with you mainly because you're making a false assumption. Specifically, you mentioned that if police wiretap you without a warrant that would be wrong. Good, great. By the same token, though, aren't they going to have to get a warrant to inspect your EDR (or anything else in your car, for that matter)? True, if a law is put on the books that states the police can take the data from your EDR anytime they want, that would be wrong. But this story shows no evidence of that. In this case, the car was involved in a fatal accident - that means that automatically the entire car is potentially evidence of a crime and that everything in it (by virtue of "probable cause") is subject to search.
I think that any outry over privacy springing from this is an over-reaction.
If I install a device on my vehicle, ask to have it put on my vehicle, and it is clearly spelled out that this may be used as a tool for law enforcement then it is one thing. If there is a little chip that might one day be used by traffic cops to query my car to see how fast I was going and I DIDN'T KNOW IT WAS IN THERE, then it is a problem. I'd have the same "kneejerk" reaction if someone installed bomb sniffing hardware in my new suitcases, even while it is well meaning it's a violation of my expectations of privacy. Raise your hands, how many people are sure they don't have this little device in their cars? Now that it has been used in this one case successfully, who doesn't think that it has the potential to be used in many more? Speeding? Stop signs?
Strangely, I was just chatting about this with my father (Happy Father's Day to all) and a couple of points came up that I thought were interesting.
The first was:
Blackboxes can be mandated on U.S. airplanes (which are privately owned) because the U.S. government can regulate interstate commerce and the airspace above the U.S. belongs to the citizens of the U.S. and are administrated by the government on our behalf.
Similarly, the interstate highway system is basically under the jurisdiction of the federal government and regulated by them (cars must meet federal safety guidelines, etc.) so it seems fairly straightforward to me that requiring black boxes in cars is well within the purvue of what we have allowed the government to handle in the past , especially since more people die in car accidents in the U.S. each year than in airplace crashes.
There is also precident for the concept that you can't just do anything to your own property (e.g. building permits, zoning regulations, child abuse laws..sorta). So this doesn't bother me too much as long as we are vigilent about misuse.
Which leads to the second point we discussed: the big problem is with the insurance companies. Their interest as a business is not really to protect you from harm, but to avoid paying claims since this costs them money. Often times this manifests itself in positive ways (credits for joining a health club, driver safety programs), but can also be rife for abuse. Everyone I know seems to have a story about recalcitrant insurance companies dragging their feet on legitimate claims. Personal injury lawyers prey on those fears all the time.
I could easily see a world where insurance companies look for any scrap of evidence they can to avoid paying your claim... these black boxes can supply it in spades: you were going 5 mph over the limit, zagged left instead of right, etc... until basically there would come a point where it would be difficult or impossible to get the insurance company to perform the service that you pay them for: to help you absorb some of the cost of a tragedy, self-inflicted or otherwise, in your life.
I wonder how many people would start dropping their car insurance because it really provides them with no value since there could always be some momentary fault found with their driving that the insurance company could point to. Perhaps we need to think about how absolutely some of this data should be interpreted; maybe the splitting of blame between parties in an accident handles this already. Should no-fault insurance become mandatory? Or should the adoption of this technology herald the beginning of individualized mass transit (that makes my head hurt typing it, I mean basically smart highways)?
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In X-Windows the client serves YOU!
A while back I was involved in head-on collision with another car on a blind bend.
The other driver claimed I was going too fast, whereas they were doing about 20MPH. My insurance company looked at the damage on both cars and determined the speed of impact was in excess of 55MPH. For a while my insurance company believed this other driver's statement, and was blaming me for the accident.
It started to get really hairy when the other driver decided to sue me for causing personal injury.
Then - at my behest - the garage took a look at the black box in my car to determine why the airbag didn't deploy. To discover my speed at the time of impact was 10MPH. When my insurance company was informed they apologised to me, and rang the Police, who threw the book at the other driver.
Scream all you want about privacy, but sometimes big-brother technology has a tangiable benefit.
Do you mind, your karma has just run over my dogma.
it only records the top speed so theres no way to know for sure
Yes, you are right. Raw data with no other point of reference is a very crappy measure of a driver's hazard level. How do you know if the 70 miles per hour recorded as a max speed was on the interstate where that was the speed limit, or in a residential area where they were speeding through a school zone? Was the jack rabbit start because they were involved in a street race, or because they lost traction in the ice and snow? Was the emergency brake because someone cut them off, or they weren't watching where they were going and almost rear ended a police car?
However, raw data like that can be compared with other statistical information about the individual to help determine their risk as a driver. Your risk as a driver is what the insurance company bases your rate on. If devices like this can indicate you are a better driver than you are currently classified in, you may demand a better rate for your current insurance company, or try to get an offer from one of their many many competitors.
Driving safer puts less wear and tear on your vehicle, uses less gasoline, gives you more time to make decisions in dangerous situations, makes the road safer for other drivers around you, makes your bed in the morning, washes your dishes, cooks your food, and cleans your clothes. Oh wait...I had a point in there somewhere. Oh yea! Driving safer generally makes you less of a risk to insure, and when you are a low risk driver, you enjoy better rates.
Beyond that, all I can say is that I am all for safer roads. The mentality in the U.S. is that of driving being a right, and it is not. Driving is a very serious responsibility, and too many Americans take it far too lightly. Ride along in a police cruiser, or with an EMT for a busy evening, and you will understand exactly why we need to make people aware just how serious the situation is, and why we cannot stress enough just how dangerous our roads are when people abuse their privilige.
I haven't lost my mind!
It is backed up on disk...somewhere...
2. In this case, the evidence from the black box did not by itself decide the case. The speed limit was 30 MPH, he said he was going 60 MPH, the investigator estimated 98 MPH and the EDR indicated 114 MPH. Now, 60, 98, or 114 in a residential 30 zone is reckless driving anyways. All this proved was that he was lying,
3. There was no problems with unreasonable search, in as much as the judge had issued a search warrant for this information.
4. The problem is with automated prosecution, which is what traffic-cameras are, and some say this could be turned into. Combined with GPS and tables of speed limits and such.... Seems this enormous focus on speed to the detriment of other dangerous behavior is caused because speed is easy to measure. I do not for a second believe that we will be any safer with people going 30 MPH, behaving like zombies. Just because the speed limit is 30.
SIGBUS @ NO-07.308
I think the speed limit should be high enough that there is no reason to break it, say 95-100mph on most interstates 75-80mph around cities. It should also be vigerously enforced. I'm talking Cars impounded and sold if speeding.
Laws that are regularly broken by 80+% of the people are ridiculous and just make people have contempt for our government and legal system.
Cheap storage VM.
Wearing a seatbelt is a matter of personal safety, but also the safety of of the other people in the car, and other people around the driver on the road.
A seatbelt not only prevents damage to the body in a crash, but also holds the driver in the seat; allowing additional control of the car after hitting something. Try ramming your car into a passenger side guardrail at a 45 degree angle at 90 KPH sometime, with a seatbelt on you'll stay in the seat and be able to control the car (somewhat). Without it, you are not in front of the steering wheel anymore and have NO chance to control the car anymore. That can (and does) mean the difference between a damaged car and a head on with a semi on the other side of the divided highway.
Seatbelts are therefore also a thing that should be worn out of responsability of other drivers, not just the wearer themselves.
Also, insurance companies do not pay, the governement does not pay when you do not wear a belt. *I* pay, along with anybody else that has ever had insurance or who has ever paid taxes. Insurance premiums are used to pay for payouts due to accidents, where do you think the money comes from? Trees?
Your selfish attitude is as disgusting as those people that insist that smoking in a closed room with other people is their "right".
Easy, trivial solution. When you purchase your insurance, they ask whether you wear a seatbelt. Say yes, get a lower premium. Say yes and don't wear your seatbelt, you're not insured.
Rich