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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.
They forget to mention that if you are accused of breaking the law you can use the black-box to prove you weren't.
It's just an instrument measuring the state of the car. People don't call Odometers a "privacy issue".
These black boxes have far more benefits that outweigh any concerns about privacy. The use of them can serve as neutral observers to determine what really happened in an accident, and can help automobile manufacturers improve safety with the use of this data.
So no, the black box didn't send him to jail. Killing a guy with his car did.
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Automobile Black Box Sends Driver to Jail
Um, no. Actually driving like a criminal, and using one's car as a weapon is what sent this scum bag to jail. The "black box" just helped make sure this freak is off the streets.
sad robot making broken music
18 months in jail for KILLING someone. (And don't even bother arguing that he is somehow indemnified by the fact that he was speeding. That's bollocks.)
Thank you for posting this, eds, right after we heard about someone getting 2/3 of that time for UNAUTHORISED RECORDING OF A MOVIE.
Why bother burning a copy of a "My Life and Times with the Thrill Kill Kult" album, when you can apparently live it for yourself at only marginally greater cost.
Dead right, man.
His lawyer is apparently whining "we'll have to appeal this very, very harsh sentence". Harsh?! 18 month sentence (and let's be honest, that only really amounts to 12 months inside) for killing someone?! Shit, the kid should be thanking his lucky stars *I* wasn't handing down that sentence...
Hitting someone when you're doing 157km/h in a built-up area is not an accident - it's like standing on a crowded subway, pulling out a pistol, closing your eyes and pulling the trigger. Maybe you won't hit anyone, but that's only by luck. That speed on the freeway, fair enough if you can handle it. But in a built-up area, no way.
Grab.
The man was not found guilty based solely on the black box's evidence. The black box's data was just one part of the evidence that led to the man's conviction. If the black box showed one thing and all other evidence contradicted it, then the black box data would be suspect and taken less seriously, or dismissed outright.
It only records 5 seconds worth of data, and stops when you hit something. I'd be more worried if it recorded 24 hours and had GPS in it. I am worried if it has no tamper protection though.
He is also barred from driving for the next three years.
WTF? He's had two accidents within the last three years due to wreckless driving, one of which kills someone, and they're only going to take away his license for three years!
Once you kill someone due to wreckless driving you should loose your driving privilages permanently. Assholes like this and the courts that fail to appropriately punish them are the reason why my insurance bills are so rediculous.
That's where this is headed, and I don't like it.
Are you familiar with the logical fallicy called "Slippery Slope?"
The argument about whether or not these can be used against you is lost (or won, depending on your POV). The next argument will be either "should these be required on all new cars" or "should taking these be standard procedure", and after both of those, mabye, we'll argue about retrofitting old cars.
But you're not required to install an airbag on your 1960s muscle car, so don't expect to be forced to install a black box, either.
Nor do I like the assumption that the government has the right to know what I'm doing and how I'm driving
Curious comment, considering the government already has this "right," by virtue of the fact that your driving license is a privilege, and not a right. Ergo, you posess the license at their discretion.
As for them monitoring your driving, are you not aware of the hundreds of thousands of speed traps, and automated red-light/photoradar camera installations that populate the continent? They do have a right to know how you're driving, and they are exercising that right vigorously, daily.
As for calibration errors, I think it's a non-issue. 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, I'm pretty sure common-sense would prevail and the data would be discarded.
Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
Well, I have some karma to burn, so here we go.
157 km/h, in downtown Montreal.... what the fuck are you thinking?
This guy deserves it. How is this any different from an outside CCTV camera catching the whole incident? This makes everyone accountable.
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.
+1 for perfectly reasonable uses of monitoring technology. Note how (a) it only recorded because there WAS an accident (post facto) and (b) the evidence was used only because someone was killed.
Let the leadfoot rot.
Blah, blah, blah.
Okay, time for some education. This person was SENTENCED to jail for 18 months. For killing someone - that's light to me. Especially since they couldn't be bothered to hit the brakes.
The kid filming the movie was ARRESTED. The statute he's charged under allows for jail time up to 1 year, if convicted, and/or up to a $2,500 fine.
See those key words - up to. Yeah, he might, MIGHT get that for the first offense. Unlikely. Probably a fine and probation. Get busted a couple of times, that's when more severe penalties get applied.
To tie this back to this discussion, the driver was probably facing up to a couple of years. His lawyer considers this a "very, very severe" sentence. Yeah - 18 months for killing a kid while travelling 3 times the speed limit and not hitting the brakes and having the car floored is light.
-- Ravensfire
"But we decide which is right, and which is an illusion"
While the right to travel freely is a right, specific methods of travel are privileges. Specifically, the right to drive a car on a public road is a privilege.
And it hasn't made it to the USSC because it's pretty damn self-evident. People are denied driver's liscences all the time, and liscences being revoked by the DMV or the courts is a pretty common occurance.
Denying someone the ability to drive themselves on a public road does not deny them the ability to travel.
Once you are driving without that permit or license, make certain you get pulled over and make certain that you tell the police officer right away that you are driving illegally. See how long you stay out of jail for.
You are right, the government cannot take away your fundamental right to travel freely across this nation. You can walk, you can pedal yourself around with a bicycle, heck you can even drag yourself on your belly if you so desire.
You have no inherent right to drive an automobile, it is written nowhere that at birth you have the fundamental right to drive.
Nobody here needs to put up a single US Supreme Court decision. That is covered by the State Law and there is no single Lawyer that I am aware of that would ever claim and attempt to take to the Supreme Court your 'Fundamental Right' to drive if you have a Suspended License or revoked Operator's Permit.
You want proof? Walk, bike or drive yourself down to your local circuit court and look at the day's docket. You will see more then a few people with reckless driving cases up before the court.
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
Your example is completely loaded. A more likely example is one where there is an accident without clear fault and the black box records one car at 56 (in a 55) and the other at 54 (in a 55). The calibration of one box by 1 MPH could mean the difference between fault and no-fault for some people. Additionally, some speedometers are inaccurate too, so if the black box is measuring speed from something like a speedometer this might still be an issue. This is especially true on older cars where the cars' settings aren't as tight as they were when it left the factory.
Your circular reasoning in regards to the government's supposed right to monitor our driving habits is blatant. Just because the government has the ability to monitor us, and just because it does monitor us, does not mean the government has the right to monitor us!
The government is constantly testing its powers and hopefully some court cases will come up challenging the government's most recent driver monitoring techniques.
Furthermore, speed traps are not a very good example of this kind of monitoring because they are done by humans for public safety. Contrast that with the machine operated red light cameras and black boxes, and I think you'll see there is a clear difference. The ethical distinction here is, in my mind, the difference between humans being held responsible by machines v. humans being held responsible by other humans. IMHO a cop sitting at a stop light giving red light tickets is justified while privately owned and operated red light cameras giving out tickets is not.
Is it legal to have your own fingerprint testify against you? Your own freezer full of severed heads? The rifling of the barrel of your own pistol? In the U.S., at least, the 5th Amd only protects you from SELF incrimination. Neither your car's black box nor the bloody knife you dropped at the murder scene can be considered part of your SELF. Besides, the only thing you're protected against is compulsory self incrimination, e.g. verbal testimony.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.