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'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."
As much as everyone here will rant on and on about how this is an intrusion of their rights, how "big brother" is watching them, this is actually a rather good idea.
...*goes to check that his car doesn't have one*
I'm not saying it should be mandated that these be installed in every single vehicle manufactured, but I see no reason why they shouldn't be admitted as evidence in a trial. Perhaps it will make people think twice before speeding like maniacs...
I would expect such blatant racism on Fark, but on Slashdot? Mods please ban this asshole.
How about just driving responsibly instead of trying to mod your box so you can continue driving irresponsibly? If you've gotten in an accident AND the box happens to show you were driving like a fool, then in order for it to be a conspiracy someone would have intentionally had to get you in an accident while your box was malfunctioning.
Right. I believe you.
Dangerous-driving conviction? And that's bad exactly how?
The owls are not what they seem
Time to start working on the mod for my Toyota."
Wouldn't that be illegal under something? The DMCA, or some Patriot Act whatnot? You're breaking into something that supposed to protect society, etc...
It records a few simple data for a short period... like the events leading up to a crash. Unless you plan on using your car as a murder weapon, I wouldn't worry much about it.
OTOH, when it starts recording everything and sending it to the police every night at 2am, I will be among the first in the driveway with a soldering iron.
Time to start working on the mod for my Toyota.
Or your driving skills. Your choice.
Why do planes have black boxes in the first place? I'm guessing the pilots of the plane have a responsibility to their passengers. In the event of a crash, grieving families might want to know what exactly went wrong before a crash. Is a car any different?
If I'm a passenger driving with a friend, that friend has a responsibility to get me from A to B safely. The same rules apply to me as a driver. I know that if a friend of mine was killed in a crash that I'd like to know if it happened to be someone else's fault or ultimately the car that was driving my friend's fault.
If you can prove these things inaccurate in crash conditions then maybe we should be second-guessing whether to use them to prosecute people. Until then, I don't see why it's harmful to use them as a tool to reconstruct fault.
-- everyones not everybody and neither is everybody like everyone.
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?
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
I can see geeks getting pulled over and cops plugging into the car for the last 5 minutes speed information.
"Sir, I suppose I was wrong - your vehicle appeared to be doing 55 all the time... in fact - it appears to be doing 55 right now..."
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).
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
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.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
So you can drive like an asshole and get away with your actions when you lose control and kill some innocent bystander?
Where's the 'right to drive', let alone the 'right to drive like an asshole and not answer for your actions' in the Constitution?
Private pilots are tracked by ATC radar, etc. If they fly too low or where they aren't supposed to fly they get busted and aren't allowed to fly anymore.
Assholes in cars kill at least 5x the number of innocent people a year that assholes with guns manage to kill.
'Privacy at all costs and in all situations' is the mantra of the selfish and unrealistic. The road isn't yours. You share it with people - all of whom have no right to privacy when it comes to their driving habits and should be held accountable for what they do - not what they are caught doing.
Black boxes in vehicles should be common knowledge, easily retrievable in a court case (preferably fitting a common standard), and tamperproof.
The fault I find with them right now is that because most people don't know they're there it's more likely black box information would be used in cases against the owner rather than by the owner as concurring evidence to an accident report.
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
Tire marks. The amount of energy required to cause so much metal deformation. Distances airborne. Inertial effects. Witnesses. And I am sure there are many I did not think of.
The black box evidence is just one of many. It will either confirm the other evidence, in which case you have some explaining to do, or it may exonerate you. ( i.e. you WERE driving a safe legal speed and the other party did in fact do a real lulu in front of you. ).
My own take - its a non-issue. Every observable event will leave evidence. This is just one more of many trails left after an automotive accident event. You can really prejudice yourself by trying to tamper with the evidence.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
"Time to start working on the mod for my Toyota."
Yes, let's disable these hideous things that invade our privacy! It isn't the police's right to know that you had the gas to the floor when you rear-ended the woman in front of you, killing her and her two kids. Let her insurance company try to put that theory forth, give you a chance!
Please. These things record data that can be very useful in collision investigations, give the investigators an idea of what happened by letting them know what each car was doing at the time of impact. Seems like this could certainly help to reduce insurance costs if it helps show that you weren't at fault. Presumably, if collision data can be collected and recorded in a central repository it could help auto designers work on the safety systems of their cars as well. I mean, doing your own controlled crash tests are fine and well, but it would seem to me they'd cost a lot of money. Add in some real-world collisions to the mix and you can get a more useful picture.
Current technology is fairly harmless, but as the data capture amount increases in both number of sensors and duration of saving, and all cars are mandated to have GPS/communication devices ( like on-star ) then the data will be used for other purposes.
Such as tracking where you go.. and when you go there... Bye Bye to one of the last remaining avenues of privacy ( a drive in the country )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
My speedometer is off by about 5mph. My gas guage is off by about 1/8 tank. What if the "black box" is out of wack too, and by more? Will I be convicted of driving 100 in a 65 zone when I was really only going 63? A machine makes a poor witness in many cases....
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
Strive to make your client happy, not necessarly give them what they ask for
The problem is that they may not have enough data.
For instance if your tires were spinning, it could record you going a lot faster than you actually were, but the blackbox has no way of telling that, it will just simply record the speed your tires were spinning at...regardless of how fast you were going...
There are many more things like this...
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"After all, a car is a lethal weapon just like a gun and guns have serial numbers."
Actually a car is a TOOL which is used for TRANSPORTATION and occasionally has SIDE-EFFECTS which may be harmful, but usually just have the intended effect.
Guns, by contrast, are TOOLS which are used for KILLING and commonly have the intended effect.
By your logic, a whole damn lot of things are lethal weapons just because they cause death. Your mistake is in calling a car a weapon. Weapons are DESIGNED to cause harm. Cars are designed to MOVE.
Now, if you rig a car up with scythed wheels like a good ol' fashioned war chariot, that'll qualify as a weapon.
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.
Boat motors have had these for years now and they (as well as GPS systems) HAVE been submitted as evidence in fatal boat accidents.
Dammy
Although I suppose their vehicle list is not comprehensive, it's an interesting source of info.
db
Cig:
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Furthermore, I don't see why every single vehicle should not be manufactured with this feature. After all, a car is a lethal weapon just like a gun and guns have serial numbers.
I think most of them are now. The collected data is used to improve airbag designs. Since airbags are dangerous (though, admittedly less dangerous than hitting your steering column and dashboard when you're brought to an abrupt halt from 131km/h in Montreal traffic), manufacturers have a tremendous liability if airbags are killing people in accidents. I know for sure that GM, DaimlerChrysler and most of the Japanese companies are using this.
131km/h is 81.4 MPH. Speaking as one who has lived in Montreal and driven on Montreal's old freeways (built before there was a real understanding of freeway design), this is too fast for the freeways of the area, let alone the city streets. Much of downtown Montreal has narrow winding streets with loads of pedestrian and cyclist traffic. Doing 81.4 MPH in those conditions is criminal irresponsibility, and an individual capable of doing something like that clearly has such a gross lack of understanding of cars and their capabilities that they probably thought 2 Fast 2 Furious was a good movie.
Never been to Montreal? Would you drive 80MPH through the streets of Lower Manhattan? Downtown Chicago?
Christ, parts of downtown Montreal have cobblestoned streets. Wet cobblestones are insanely slippery, and you still can stand at an intersection and watch some idiot who thinks his MacPherson-strut equipped front-wheel-drive Acura Integra with tinted windows can take him around any corner safely at twice - let alone four times - the posted speed limit.
This should have been a criminal conviction, especially with the supporting evidence from the black box.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
I would assume that the black box data was only one link in the chain of evidence. The article did not make that clear.
Police have crash specialists that analyse crash sitations. All that expertise will not disappear simply because newer model cars are equipped with data collection devices. No credible professional investigator would rely completely on the black box data when recreating the crash scene. Any competent defense counsel would have a field day if a crash investigator relied soley on black box data if the physical evidence contradicted the data analysis alone.
"Well regulated" translates to "well trained" in the language of the time. ( of the writing )
It wasnt important to include, in the context of a signature.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
ABS when working properly gets rid of skid marks.
This leaves much less evidence on how fast you were going.
Additionally it might be interesting to see that someone hit the gas when they "accidentally" ran someone over.
Actually, my left-wing friend, any tool can become a weapon.
A car becomes a deadly weapon when I intentionally strike you or run you over with one. I am using my tool as a weapon. In this case, you being killed or greatly injured is not a side-effect, but in fact intended effect.
A crowbar is a tool with many uses. If I bash you over the head with it, it just became a weapon. A power drill is also a multi-use tool, unless I plunge it into your skull during sleep. Again a weapon. A butcher knife is a tool for preparing food, unless I use it to sever your genitals.
Guns are tools which are used for deterrence, among other things. They are not used for killing unless I point it at you and shoot you with it. Not that I am threatening to do that or ever could do that to anyone.
Now do I agree with the parent? No. Guns shouldn't have serial numbers either.
I don't see why this is such a difficult concept for the pro-gun crowd to accept.
Guns are machines that are designed to propel bullets at a rate of speed that's intended to be damaging to the target. That is they are designed to do.
Cars are machines that are designed to transport people and goods.
Crowbars are designed to pry things apart.
Yes, all three can be used to do damage. But guns are the only machine whose primary function is to do damage to a target. Yes, virtually anything can become a weapon if the user wants it to be. But guns are special in that their primary functionality as a machine is as a weapon.
Everyone is missing the point. The point is not that the data retrieved was legitimate. Any physicist could have provided the same information. (My high school physics teacher used to testify in court doing accident reconstruction.) The problem is not that they got this data on the perpetrator. The problem is that they did it using a recording device in the person's car. This is a slipperly slope! How much information is this device allowed to record? How much of that information is the court allowed to admit as evidence? These are the critical issues. Don't get blinded by the details of this particular example! This is a much larger issue, and it has nothing to do with convicting bad drivers!!
How long after that before random checkpoints access this data without a cop seeing you apparently speeding first?
How long before a wireless option is added and your car data is checked by unmanned roadside monitors and the ticket arrives in the mail? Or is just automatically debited?
How long before they just automatically disable your car when you exceed your limit?
How long...
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Actually, my left-wing friend, any tool can become a weapon...Guns are tools which are used for deterrence, among other things. They are not used for killing unless I point it at you and shoot you with it.
Er, and how is a gun a deterrence to me unless I think you are a violent wacko who is going to shoot me with it? I've never understood why disliking guns was a left-wing concept. Plenty of wacko left-wing groups like the Red Flag Army loved guns just as much as wacko right-wing groups like the Branch Davidians. I dislike guns because I'm not into wacko violent groups of any stripe.
Further, the box has an equal ability to prove that someone is not at fault. It is there as a neutral observer.
Most people don't know their car has such a box. I don't know if my does, but being that it's over 10 years old I'm blessing the merits of not having the latest technology for once.
Now, it's fine to say that "Joe Average could use this to prove his innocence," but it seems in most cases "Joe Average" doesn't even know the thing is there, or what it does, and thus it would only likely be used against him.
Look. It all very very simple.
I own the vehicle.
I do not want the EDR.
I should be allowed to remove/disable it.
End of Story.
The black box recording can be turned off, or so i'm told by a friend that works for GM. He says he turns the recording off in all his vehicles. They have some device called a tech 2 or tech 3 and the recording can be turned on and off with this device.
Well, now the scope creep comes in. Since the legal system found out what was being recorded, these are being used for other purposes.
Accuracy? When I worked at GM, they recorded the RPM of each wheel as well as acceleration. One wheel far faster than the rest? that means that wheel is spinning, or maybe 3 have locked up. It does not take a rocket scientist to determine which case. Maybe you ought to think about driving a little slower?
There are a lot of people here saying that 'this is no problem if you are within the law, just drive slower'.
This logic is damn scary.
It ASSUMES that the law is sensible, realistic and actually suitable for the situation. In fact, laws are only RARELY ANY OF THESE. It assumes that police and prosecutors will never bend the situation in their favor to further their careers at the expense of the accused. Perhaps we should discuss a bridge I have for sale...
The laws do not consider any variations in levels of skill or preparation of the car. There are many of situations where an unskilled driver in a rattletrap car is unsafe at 30mph, a skilled driver in a good car and tyres is safe at 60, and a qualified racer in a prepared street car (to say nothing of formula cars) would be *slow* at 90.
Does the law consider any of this? NO. Would the prosecutors consider any of this? NO.
Sure, in this case, the offence seems particularly egregious, and the device only records a few seconds. But this is where it all starts down the slippery slope. Pretty soon, it is minor accidents, or generic offences, then the devices are used to record more, and report.
Note that this is just the airbag sensor, there are already much more sophisticated sensors and recording being installed in the engine management and other systems (check out OBD-II and OBD-III).
What is most scary about this is that this is a forum for the supposedly technologically sophisticated. These are exactly the people who should be most inclined to consider the ASSUMPTIONS. Yet many posts just assume the law and procecutors would be fine.
Scary by itself. Worse yet, what does it say about the code and products these people build?
Cheers.
Recently our company has begun writing several of the sensor signals into unused areas of the EEPROM when we detect certain types of component failures. This helps to troubleshoot what area of the failure detection strategy code might be too sensitive. (To avoid those "I had a warning lamp on this morning and when I drove to lunch it was gone." experiences)
I am certain that the the airbag module supplier has this functionality implemented for similar reasons, especially since new "multiple stage" airbags are beginning to be used. The article calls it an Event Data Recorder which most definitely was not the intent of recording such data.
The stability control system has the ability to record 10-20 more interesting pieces of data such as throttle position, yaw rate, steering angle, lateral and longitudinal acceleration, four individual wheel speeds, master cylinder hydraulic pressure, etc. But why should it? The auto industry fights vigorously for every single cent (even fractional cents) in the cost of each component. Unless the OEM specifically requests such functionality, the supplier (my company) won't just add it in for fun.
We only have enough unused space in our EEPROM for a few signals at the exact point in time that the failure occurred, and would have no reason to increase this capacity unless our customer (the OEM) requested it and was willing to pay for it. This type of "snapshot" is only to improve the robustness of the product in the long term.
Misuse of this data is really the issue, not the fact that it is being written.
Now, what if you pay cash? Well, the original still goes to the state MVD.
In exchange for this (it is part of registration), you get your "license to drive" - well, actually, to get a license, you have to surrender your MSO to the MVD.
There is a lot of speculation that it may all be bullshit (like all good conspiracy theories), but look into "Right to Travel" on Google.
Basically, as the theory goes, when licensing for automobiles came about, we traded our freedom to travel for the automobile license, and thus have become slaves (not Free Men) to the State...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon