Automobile Black Box Sends Driver to Jail

myzor writes "This article from the Montreal Gazette reports that a driver got 18 months in jail for speeding that killed a man, after the black box in his car revealed he was going 157 km/h (98 mph) in a 50 km/h zone in downtown Montreal. The recording device, which stores data on how a car is driven in the last five seconds before a collision, showed that four seconds before impact, the driver had the gas pedal to the floor and didn't brake before impact." Reader ergo98 writes "Setting a precedent for the Canadian legal system, a Quebec man was convicted based upon the incriminating evidence found in his own car's black box." The Star also has another article looking at the issues surrounding the data recorder.

Comments

Or worse!

[mekkab]

My black boxes is stuck at "doesn't signal while changing lanes" and "sings along to the Backstreet boys at top volume!"

They day I get pulled over and ticketed because my box says I'm "stuck at nerd" is the day that the terrorists win.

Re:Excellent

[strike2867]

I blame the guy that got killed. He went outside of his bomb shelter knowing full well that there could be someone out there that could kill him. The government should have at least put a bubble around him. It is the governments responsibility to keep us from getting injured. I will praise any Senator that proposes we outlaw knifes, forks, chopsticks. Who know what we can do to ourselves with them.

that's nothing

[univeralifepadre]

driver got 18 months in jail for speeding that killed man

the guy in the movie theater got a year and all he had to do was take out his videocam.

This *IS* a non-story

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

I can get angry about it when people start suggesting that black boxes shoulld be mandatory, and that's the next logical step in this case.

Yeh, who knows! Today they want to use these things to pop people who run down and kill other people, tomorrow they'll want to plant the damn things IN OUR HEADS!

Re:This is a non-story

[sphealey]

He's had two accidents within the last three years due to wreckless driving, one of which kills someone,

Normally I think spelling flames are pointless, but the difference between reckless and wreckless was too good to let go by!

sPh

Re:This is a non-story

[medscaper]

If you're involved in a collision in which your bumper is crushed, but the rest of the car is intact, and the black box claims you were impacted the tree at 182 MPH

When I was a kid, and you hit a tree at 182 MPH, you knew it, by God.