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NTSB Recommends Black Boxes For All Cars
linuxwrangler writes "Officials at the National Transportation Safety Board are recommending the government require data recorders in all passenger vehicles. David Sobel of EPIC says his group has privacy concerns - especially when drivers are unaware of the presence of the devices. Auto black-boxes have been covered here before."
They're not recommending that anyone try and install a black box in my '85 Gemini. Also, I'm Australian, but the point is that since new cars know a lot about what's going on, it should be logged. Are there any IT professionals out there who don't want to log stuff when things go wrong?
I remember when we first started hearing about the idea of black boxes being put in passenger vehicles... The first thing all the supporters said is "Your car already has one! You know... your check engine light, etc." Other supporters realized how a black box would help them if a drunk driver hit them & it was his word against them. The black box would tell the truth.
Then the opponents of black boxes mentioned that sooner or later, insurance companies & Big Brother(tm) would be pushing for mandatory black boxes.... and not just for noble purposes! They reasoned that a new insurance policy could introduce some new limitation clauses - like if you were going more than 3 mph over the speed limit when an uninsured motorist collided with you, your uninsured motorist coverage would be voided.
Well, here we are, a few years later and NIST is recommending mandatory black boxes.
Skeptics: 1
Naive Technology Connoisseurs: 0
I sincerely hope that was sarcasm. There are things that are legal but should remain private, like business dealings or sexual preferences. Using that rationale we could literally institute 1984 tomorrow, and it would be just dandy with you. Do you really want your toaster reporting back to the government?
You also misunderstand the technology, black boxes are passive monitoring devices. They transmit nothing, they just record.
Any black box recording technology has the ability to be abused, but the potential for abuse flies in the facce of this:
Jeff - Killed in 1987 by a drunk driver.
Carole - Killed in 1993 by a wreckless driver.
My HS Prom King and Queen - Killed in 1984 by drunk driving.
Peter - Paralyzed from waist down in 1982 by an elderly person who could no longer drive.
Tonya - Scarred over 80% of her body by a car fire started when rear ended by a speeding car.
Lisa - Killed in 1996 by a driver who lost control while speeding around a curve.
There are many more I can recount, both dead and alive who have been victims of people who had no business driving a car. The little black boxes might help get them off the road and save lives. As far as using them for anything else. We (the people) will allow it to go just as far as we are ignorant. I am certain it can be abused in so many ways. I am not certain the deaths and maimings it would be able to prevent (or the simple correct assignment of cost of damages) would be that light a reason to install them.
I can not think of any reason to be afraid of a black box unless it pinpoints you being somewhere that you should not have been. (I may be being naive). Black boxes record only enough data to determine what caused an accident to happen. Driving habits could be incorporated, as could other data. Would it be worth it if it cut the number of people killed and maimed on our roads in half?
InnerWeb
Freud might say that Intelligent Design is religion's ID.
Offtopic ~ If health insurance companies really consider your life to be worth a million dollars, why don't they provide life insurance?
...and just agree to be encased in styrofoam at birth, tagged with RFIDs at birth, and have video cameras installed throughout the land.
That's where this is all heading at this rate. If it's not the "well reasoned" tech connosieurs pointing out how the new technologies will benefit us, it's the "terrified of terrorists" crowd crowing about how terrorists need to be stopped at all costs.
Baby steps to 1984. Or is it brave new world? Either way, liberty and privacy are slipping away like sand through our fingers. Yeah, black boxes could do alot of good things, but you have to believe in Santa Claus at this point to not think this isn't going to be used against us.
Think for yourself, destroy your television.
The pros are simple. Lets make it go a bit further and install a box in very car that records exactly what the car is doing at all times. Furthermore if a car is found driving without a box the police will know instantly and can stop it.
What will happen? Well a sharp drop in car thefts, kinda hard to steal a car that is constantly reporting were it is. Tech like this is already in use and it is helping.
Currently hit and runs are on the increase. With such a system the offending car could be easily traced.
Fewer high speed chases. Police can just hang back and see where the car is going to end up.
People disabling the device would have the problem that the car "winks" out on a certain spot. Very easy for the police to then raid the shop were the device is disabled.
No more need for speed camera or police resources wasted on policing the roads.
So a clear win eh?
After all what is on the CON side?
A lot whining, oh such a black box means I can't lie about an accident anymore. I can't speed anymore. I can't use my car in a crime anymore.
Yeah well guess what, society depends on people not doing these things. So the only ones hurt are criminals and who cares about them.
Any person that raises privacy issues and names one of the above points is an enemy of privacy and is probably being paid to undermine the real privacy advocates.
The real issue with any system like this can be illustrated by the following question. IBM once was asked to setup a system that allowed a certain country to register the religion of each person and that of their parents. Pretty harmless right? Right, read up on the holocaust sometimes and more importantly read up on the time between when the registration took place and when the gas chambers opened.
The problem is not how such a black box will be used now. The problem is 10-15-20 yrs from now. When someone totally different then the current goverment may be handed a tool that tells them exactly where everyone is.
Sadly this issue will get overshouted by all those who don't want to be fingered by their own car in an "accident" who don't want to get a fine because their car reported it was speeding. The criminals protesting are in fact the advocates for introducing such a system.
Personally I am undecided. Cars seem to get more and more out of control with the drivers somehow loosing touch with basic human values. SUV's are expensive gas guzzlers wich are hard to park, don't fit on roads, are unneeded and have a far higher chance of killing in an accident (pedestrians don't stand a chance and small cars get crushed) and yet SUV's sell like hot cakes.
For some reason when people get in a car they seem to need the state to watch their every move or they won't behave by the values they themselves told the state to enforce.
Perhaps the greatest enemy to privacy is human nature. Give a human anonimity and he won't human anymore. Just play a round of CS or chat on freenet and you will see what I mean. Perhaps we need a big brother/community watching over us.
Hell, test youreselve, read /. at -1. No? Then you want a police webstate.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Lets put it differently, what would you call someone who is charged with rape and ordered to donate DNA for investigation and then says NO because it may finger me in previous rapes I commited?
I think current law is pretty clear. "THAT IS THE WHOLE POINT DIPSHIT".
So claiming this black box will stop you or at least catch you at breaking the law IS EXACTLY THE REASON THEY ARE TRYING TO INTRODUCE IT. They should send you a card thanking you for making their point.
The police using technology to prove criminals have broken the law. Yeah that is abusive, how dare they stop that. I got rights!!!!
Please can the real privacy advocates kill you off? You are hurting the cause. It is the system mis-used to capture non-criminals that should be alarming. Would be very easy to link car->license->nationality and then stop any car near a "sensitive" area belonging to say an Arab. Or have a poor persons car tailed by private security when it enters a rich area. Those are the real fears, not your petty speeding ticket.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Of course, because the government sees us all as children.
Life is not for the lazy.
"However, I think the public good of having what would probably be a significantly higher rate of correctly assigning blame in accidents outweighs the privacy issue, at least from a philosophical standpoint. Not sure about a legal one."
People like you are the ones allowing our Civil Liverty to go down the tolit. You really mean you want to give up ANY MORE privacy to the U.S Govt just so we can see who was wrong in a car wreck..??
This is what the media does for the govt they scare people all the time with this car accident lead to 60 people dead, this black drug dealer killed 2 white wemen, we are changing the US state of alert to code RED because terrorists are in the US be carefull at your local malls and stores.
Then the next thing you hear is this bill got signed to protect us against terrorists (Patriot Act gets signed), make GUNS illegal so Black drug dealers can't shoot white wemen with them any more.. new gun laws get passed (more criminal have guns less Citizens have them)... now we need black boxes in cars because 60 people died.. black boxes help law enforcement with car crash investigations (read, INS companies get off the hook more often and are paying less and less claims due to black boxes), Single Mother Killed in Car Accident, Hit by drunk Driver family asking community for support due to INC company refusal to pay because she was going 6mi over the speed limit children devistated, New Sky Rise Complex gets built in Denver Colorado Today (INS companyes have more money to invest in realestate)...etc...etc...etc..
Really WANA save lives protest your Govt from invading countries and blowing them up, stop the media from acting as an agent of terrorism, I think 9pm news causes more terror then the black drug dealer I walked by down town yesterday.
WAKE UP, stop buying into all this B.S hype!!
-=Linsys=-
http://www.intrusionsec.com
US need a MUCH MORE rigorous drivers training program - most other country with a large road network has one: Japan, Germany (I think most of europe), heck even China. Black boxes may convict the dangerous drivers, but it won't stop people from being killed.
At least support something that will solve the *root* of your problems: doing away with generations of bad drivers teaching their kids who turn out to be even worse drivers.
My life in the land of the rising sun.
My main concern with black box data being used to determine fault, etc. is that currently they have little to no security other then a proprietary connector. There is nothing to prevent tampering with the "evidence". Even if the box data is encrypted, etc. you can still tamper with the vehicles sensors. I have no problem with technology being applied to enforce the law, but we can't take human judgement out of the equation. I can think of lots of situations that could unintentionally cause the computer to report bad data, not to mention malicous tampering. Also the kind of information reported (speed, direction of wheels, braking, engine status, etc.) can be interpreted to fit a preconceived notion. Sadly cars are turning more and more into a consumable good like electronics, to be used then thrown away, or turned over to a manufacturer's repair facility. Part of this is due to an inherent increase in the complexity of cars, but a lot of its because people can't be bothered to do things themselves (and thus demand servicable cars). Ever try to work on a car in the driveway of your home, in the suburbs? Won't be long before the neighbors are bitching and calling code enforcement etc. to breath down your neck (all but the poorest areas of where I live are becoming like this).
Does this really get in the way of my privacy? Nope. I don't think the Black Box is going to read my mind and broadcast my thoughts for all the world to see. It's not going to track everywhere I go through GPS and inform some insidious 'Shadow Government' of my whereabouts.
Nope, all it should do is contain crash data. I don't see anything wrong with that.
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
I don't have any expectation of privacy in respect of how I drive my car on the roads. I'm in a public place, controlling a lethal piece of machinery, I should be held to account for my every action.
This is what really gets me angry and the civil liberty preachers. Everything is compared to the Patriot Act. The Patriot Act is a horrible piece of legislation and I personally believe someone must be held accountable for it getting passed, and go to court on treason charges. Comparing the Patriot act to a black box is like comparing a gun to an x-ray machine: it just doesn't work.
I see a black box as an only means to be exonerated in crashes involving things such as road rage. Sometimes there's a crash where they cannot reconstruct what happened. This data might be all that is needed to understand what happened.
Sorry, I do not understand how knowing what a car was doing X seconds before a crash intrudes on civil liberties in anyway. If someone had access to it whenever they wanted then maybe, but that's not the case now, is it? Who says you/next of kin does't have to sign to have the data released? Who says there doesn't already have to be probably suspicion?
I gotta fire this right back at you. If you want to PROTECT civil liberties, do NOT simply attack every form of progress that could be used in such a manor. DO make sure that when the technologies are adopted your concerns are addressed.
I can't believe I haven't read a single post yet in favor of this. If you get in a car crash, you can tell if you were speeding. If you were doing 100 in a 35 and hit a kid, you should be in jail, and the black box can make that happen.
http://www.rustyrazorblade.com
I think the only people that have issues with this are eitehr criminals or your run-of-the-mill speeder. I fall into the latter catagory.
However I have been in numerous accicents, all but one of which were not my fault. However two of those incedents the insuance companies settled with a mutual fault decision.
I think having the data logger would very clearly show what exactly happened, and in those two cases, save my insurance rates.
Now, big brother can watch you, or they can watch your back for you. Unless these black boxes have unique identifies and wireles signals, I'm venturing it'll be watching your back for you technology. As long as someone has to get into my car (get physical access from the box) and plug a reader in, the only time I'm going to allow that is under court order or if I am innocent. If police start black-box checking at road blocks for speeders liek the do drunks, then I would not be for this. However I do think it is an impractical scenario.
Now as moore's law applies eventually they wil be able to store 100,000 miles worth of data. Not only that but an on board accelerometer can establish your every lane change and turn. You can then coalesce the data and come up with every place you've driven to.
The easy way to fix this is just to limit it to the last 5 minutes or 5 miles, which is done easily enough.
Now on the subject of speeders. Every speeder has to admit that if speed was a factor it should be known. After all we know we do speed. However if speed is not a factor because of a larger violation (failure to stop, etc) then I doubt any court will see your minor speed infraction as relavant. But if it is a major speed infraction, then you can have unclean hands, because mostly likely you would not have caused the accident.
If you are so concerned about speed, then get off your butts and change the laws. And I think that is the reasonable and right way to address your concerns. If we all speed, then that is civil disobediance on a wide scale and the laws need reform.
Remember only criminals are afraid of the truth (in an accident).
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
In addition, driving a motor vehicle on a public road is, by definition, A PUBLIC ACTIVITY that is witnessed by hundreds of eyes. Therefore, one CANNOT HAVE ANY EXPECTATION OF PRIVACY WHILE DRIVING A MOTOR CAR ON A PUBLIC ROAD.
Hence, a black box in a car is perfectly acceptable.
And no one bitches about black boxes in aircraft, locomotives, trucks and buses whose drivers have to fill-in log-books. So why should a private motor-car be treated any differently???
The main problem with this, as with most electronic data gathering, is that it doesn't tell the whole story. It can tell people what your car was doing at the time, but it can't tell them about the dog in the road, or the reckless behavior of the idiot who forced you out of your lane before speeding away. There's always more to it than just the vehicles that were physically involved in an accident.