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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."
How 'bout we set up the following system:
1) The black box will register things such as speed, acceleration, position of the steering wheel, gear shift, pedals, emergency brake, etc.
2) It will not monitor stuff such as GPS
3) It will loop every [30] seconds or so (just a suggestion, maybe a little more)
4) Data will only be available following a crash in which injuries or serious physical damage resulted or with the owner's consent.
5) Optionally, this information will not be available to insurance companies or for prosecution in either civil or criminal cases. I think that the data should be available, but I can see valid objections to this.
That way the safety people get what they want -- a system that will provide information about what happens in a crash -- while not acting very big brothery.
The issue described by the parent of this post is profoundly important. It goes to the very issue of citizen rights. In a country where your rights are issued you by the State and you live on its permits, the logic of allowing this sort of information to be used against you without a serious condition such as an accident or personal injury is hard to understand. There you didn't have the rights anyway. In such a case there is no question of the use of this data.
In Nation(s) such as the USA where the Citizen has the rights and they are leased to the State by a Constitution, the authorities must have "Probable Cause" to bring a warrant. (Real or imminant danger of an offense) A person cannot be compelled to testify against themselves. In such a State this data is not just a matter of its existence, it is a matter of violation of citizen rights to compel it.
I know I will hear from some idiot who remarks about driving not being a "right" but a "privilege." This has always been a questionable ruling of law covering the requirement to carry a drivers license and for "implied consent" for Drug testing of drivers (DUI). If people accept that such an "implied consent exists, they may as well allow electronic devices that can control the car's speed and prevent violations all of the time. But this would defeat the purpose of the violations and citations because they are really issued for revenue reasons and not public safety reasons.
Also violations that are issued by vending machine as these would be have absolutely no consideration of circumstances or conditions.
It might be acceptable under "Probable Cause" to evaluate the data if an accident has occurred. There you have probable cause to look.
Non USA posters will probably not understand this because the logic of most if not all other nations is that the power is the right of the State (Nation syn State) and a person merely gets their rights from a State. Note the (s) after State(s) above. The USA is 50 Nations in a Constitutional Federal Republic. These are nations on their own right. Several of these States approximately equal the greatest of States of the rest of the world (Non-USA) in economic power. Most of these States (USA) have armed forces ranking on their own in the world as world powers and I am not talking about the US Army/Air Force/Navy etc. The Citizens of these States(USA) have their rights and they lease them by Constitution to the States etc.
Never Politically Correct ~ I prefer the facts If you don't like what I say, get a life, or comment yourself.
Has much thought been given to the quantity of data involved and how long it will it need to be archived ?
Accidents happen very quickly and so, to be useful in accident analysis, readings would have to be taken many times a second. Readings would probably include wheel position, accelerator position, braking state, grip, suspension movement, temperature, weather(!) as well as all the internal readings from inside the engine. This could amount to a considerable stream of data.
How would this data be stored ? Solid state or hard drive ? Would there need to be a mandatory minimum size for the log? One week's data or one year? Could it be an offence not to have enough capacity?
Would the on-board log wrap round or would it get reset? Could the driver reset the log? Would it be an offence to reset the log immediately after an accident?
If the log was used for maintaining the car would the garage doing the servicing have to download the log? Would they have to pass on details to the police? Would you be allowed to carry out servicing at home or only at "authorised" garages?
In imagining uses for this log it is interesting to note the differences between the US and the UK when it comes to the use of aircraft "black boxes". US airlines are required to record a minimal set of parameters and then these are used as part of any crash investigation. UK airlines, on the other hand, are required to record hundreds of parameters and each log has to undergo computer analysis after every flight. This analysis looks for values (or combinations) outside normal ranges and is used to trigger preventative maintenance and more detailed safety inspections.
Paul
www.opencouncil.org
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