'Black Box' Readings Help Convict Montreal Driver

the man writes "From CBC News, Here's one that is going to get a lot of attention in the coming years. Quebec police won a dangerous-driving conviction Friday using evidence from the 'black box' in the car, a first in the province. Turns out that not many people know of these things. Time to start working on the mod for my Toyota."

Comments

Ok before everyone goes bezerk

[unixwin]

Before everyone starts pulling their hair apart, running into their garages and tear their car to pieces please read what this blackbox does / can do... QUOTE

The device is known as an event data recorder (EDR), or simply a "black box," because it serves a similar function to a flight data recorder in an aircraft. The information the black boxes record includes: the car's speed; the engine's speed; whether the brakes are applied; the position of the gas pedal. It also records other information, such as whether the driver was wearing a seatbelt and the force of the collision. Because the memory of the black box is limited, it only retains this information for a few seconds. After a collision, the black box contains a record of what was happening in the last seconds before the impact.

This is good

[JFMulder]

I've heard about the case a few months ago, since I live in Montreal. They said that these little devices recorded only speeds and such. No audio is involved of course. What is interresting is that it doesn't record for a long time. It essentially has a buffer of about 5 or 10 seconds. When the car body registers a hit, it stops registering speeds, so it doesn't overwrite the speed before the impact. This way, police officers can't use these as a way to prove someone was going over the limit when they were chasing someone, but it's still usefull in car crashes.

I wonder what happens though if I have an accident once with my car, and then have it repaired. Is the box reset by the car repairman?

So what

[Andorion]

These things will only be used in two cases:

1) Driver kills or seriously injurs someone, and claims innocence - the box will tell the truth, and if they're guilty of the crime, they SHOULD be found out and punished.

2) The driver is dead, in which case the box will tell his story for him - and tell it accurately.

This thing won't be used for your common speeding violation... it's been in cars for a long while, it serves it's purpose, and there's no reason to be up in arms over it.

~Berj

Sure

[cubicledrone]

In California, they're about to install sensors to detect if cars are "high emitters" in real time. If the car has high emissions, a picture of the license plate is taken, and the car is scheduled for another tax assessm^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H smog check.

Eventually, the car will have to be "activated" by a central computer system every day. If emissions are too high, the car just won't start, requiring a $150 tow charge to have it checked ($50) and repaired ($850) and then re-registered ($700) and an insurance premium paid ($385).

time to start educating idiots.

[Lumpy]

First these "black boxes" are nothing more than a small amount of flash memory that is written to when the airbag system is activated. if your car has airbags, then YOU HAVE THE RECORDER. [Add ominous evil soundtrack here]

now, they record nothing unless the airbags are deployed. when they do they record vital data that the airbag system manufacturers need to continue to make airbag systems safer and save more lives, it's just that lawyers got wind of this and decided to start having the data used in court.

The fun part is that the insurance companies started the trend. and you know what?? you crash your car, the insurance company can instantly get ownership of the car and data by simply "totaling it out" so they will now gladly give the data freely to the courts.

you want an answer? A- remove the airbags and trigger sensors from your car... or B- drive like a sane person.

those are your two choices..pick one.

FUD Alert

[jfmiller]

from the article:


"The prospect that we're all under constant scrutiny has social effects and legal effects that we haven't even contemplated," said Stephen Keating of the Privacy Foundation at the University of Denver.

This is just plain wrong. The "black box" can only be used if/when the airbag deploys. Under any other circumstances it discards all information every 2 seconds. Even if it was to be removed from a parked car it would only tell the snoop that the car was stopped before it was shut off.

Just to make sure everbody get the point:
Monitering is not constant but only availible after an airbag deploying crash.

JFMILLER

not a "Black Box"

[Gray Elf]

Before anyone gets there knickers in a bunch. These "Black Box"'s have been around for years. I know, i work for a car dealership in MD. And there was an article here about a year ago when everyone "first" heard about it. These computers are responsible for controlling all (if not most) of the electronic equipment in your car. They have been doing this since at least 1998 or 99. Most of your new cars have one in them. They record, on average, about the last 3-5 seconds of data for a technician to look at when you car is acting funny. The data is retrieved using a handheld device called a tech-2. At least that is the device we use here.

Now, weather or not this data should be used to convict a reckless driver, I'll leave that up to the law makers and public opinion. But big brother is not watching. They are not there to catch you doing something wrong.

Re:131km/h = 81.4 MPH

[Karellen !-P]

Worst this is that the 131 km/h was just before impact. The previous 2 seconds of data indicated that the moron lifted his foot off the gas and slowed down from 154 km/h. Data from the black box was necessary since there were no eyewitness and no skid marks.

Re:well

[canajin56]

IIRC, the recording window is beteween 30 and 60 seconds, and it stops when you get in an accident (OR at least, any accident severe enough to make the airbag deploy)