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Car Owners to be Notified of Blackboxes in Vehicle
smooth wombat writes "As a follow-up to this long ago posting, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has passed a resolution requiring car manufacturers to inform buyers if their cars are equipped with Event Data Recorders (EDRs). The new regulation also standardizes what information is to be collected. Car manufacturers must comply with the new regulation beginning in the 2011 model year."
5 years of collecting any kind of data we want, without telling anyone!
One thing I've always feared: some huge speed bump because after some driving incident/accident I'm embroiled in an "I said/you said" recount of the event. I try to be as safe a driver as possible and have managed 30+ accident-free years. But almost every trip is an adventure with crazies on the road every day. This black box technology could hedge my (and others) bets on accurately describing what "went down".
I don't like the thought someone would be watching me all the time like Big Brother, but on the other hand if I get t-boned, and the other party claims I ran a red light or some other nonsense I like the thought there could be an electronic record showing the other party was traveling way over the speed limit, weaving, slamming brakes, etc. right up to the event.
It could be a great equalizer for insurance rates. It could even spur better driving in on whole by the general populace (some drivers of course and their negligence is intractable).
And, as for the breach in privacy, I don't see much demand and/or interest in the type of data described in the article in contexts other than accidents. If you're accident free, why would the data be interesting?
(Aside: I actually installed a "Car Chip" in my car for personal monitoring. Most notably I was surprised at the frequency of "hard accelerations" -- far more than I'd have guessed. The data was charted against distance, and I was able to "see" where I was "hard accelerating". Interestingly after knowing this, and paying more attention to accelerating I self-modified my habits and the mileage for my car (Civic) increased almost 6%.)
(NOTE: this doesn't address and/or discuss the notion of tracking movement and travel via mechanisms such as GPS... a whole other ball of wax in privacy discussions.)
But what happens when all cars have black boxes, and there's no way to avoid buying a new car with one in it?
What also needs to happen, in addition to informing the buyer of the existence of such a recording device in a car, is to have the buyer decide whether or not such a device should be disabled/removed before purchase at no extra cost or liability to the buyer.
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
This changes nothing. Try to get car insurance without agreeing to give your insurance company access on demand.
Anyone know if this information will be required to be disclosed to vehicle renters?
ôó
Do we ALSO need a law to indicate that it's illegal to remove my own property from the car and then destroy that property if I'm in an accident? Imagining that it's my fault, that is. It's not evidence of a crime, unless I intentionally caused the accident.
Are police just entitled to come along and remove it from my car without my permission now? Do they have to ask?
--Jim (me)
After all, the life cycle of a car, beginning with design, is just plain long. They can't just mandate that beginning tomorrow, every car made will have 'future technology 1' embedded. Fine, that makes sense.
But if this is just about notifying buyers, it should be immediate. There's no need to give GM five years to get out a dealer bulletin and some stickers for the owners manuals.
It was a joke! When you give me that look it was a joke.
5 years of collecting any kind of data we want, without telling anyone!
If the data is a loop of recent events and data is not leaving your car how are they watching you?
I was telling an attorney friend about EDR's and his response was "really? I suppose that means I can subpoena that information and admit it for evidence. Unless it's ruled self-incrimination..." We spent about an hour discussing and it brought up a whole bunch of interesting questions: Is the information on this machine considered part of a persons "papers or effects" or is all information now property of the government court to be surrendered on demand? Is destroying this device considered tampering with evidence... do I have a right to smash up my own car (computer, books, diary, etc.)? If not, I think this intrudes on my property rights. Where does the court's right to information about me end and my rights to my own property and information begin? Is it safe to say "none of your damned business" any more?
Bush vows to end America's dependence on foreign oil by 4922.
Or is the NHTSA a newly hated acronym. National Highway Traffic Safety Asministration
As a follow-up to this long ago posting, the National Highway Traffic Safety Asministration has passed a resolution...
Somebody almost made a Freudian slip.
I got my Linux laptop at System76.
I didn't know there was a National Highway Traffic Safety Asministration...
As we all know, "black boxes" used in planes are pretty useless because they often fail at key times, failing to record any useful information. Or, at least, that's what the 9/11 Commission would like you to believe...
The fact that this is a problem people have to deal with makes me glad I bike to work.
Of course, I'm also glad that the car my wife and I own is from 1990. We're considering getting a newer car, but only for safety reasons (airbags). As with many software manufacturers, car companies hope their customers will feel compelled to buy a new model every few years. They also don't give much tangible reason to upgrade: my 16-year-old car still gets an average 28mpg.
With the potential privacy concerns, obvious expenses, and lack of ostensible improvement over older cars, I don't understand why anyone is buying new.
over rev your engine and the computer rats on you.
Well this is crazy! I'm about ready to leave it all behind. I'm going to jump in my car and drive away and no one will be able to find me. Oh.. wait. Damn you technology!
Hexy - a strategy game for iPhone/iPod Touch
I'm not a big fan of this level of privacy invasion but their is too much precident for privacy crushing actions that this will likley be mandatory in the near future(7-21 years out), as the added price will be negligible.
Storm
Is the information on this machine considered part of a persons "papers or effects" or is all information now property of the government court to be surrendered on demand?
It won't ever belong to you. "Your honor this person is tampering with the car's safety system." Pretty much says it all.
do I have a right to smash up my own car
Yes, but don't fsck with the black box. Kind of like people rewinding odometers, it will be forbidden.
You are lucky to have such thought provoking friends, but I'm afraid the individual has no standing.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Notification laws aren't that useful. California has one that requires businesses to post warnings of "hazardous substances". Problem is, damned near everything is a hazardous substance under this law. Consequently, every business has one of these placards and nobody pays any attention because if we did, we'd never be able to buy anything. This notification will just end up as another piece of paper in the mound that nobody ever reads and that we sign whenever we buy a car. I suppose it will have the benefit of letting the seller say, "We told you about this" when some dope comes back a few years later, upset that his black box recording ratted him out as going 100 mph just before the crash.
Not sure if it's the same in the US, but this info is already disclosed in Canada(and I assume in other places), in the car's manual. Has anyone actually read their manual to check if they were actually informed of it before saying how violated they feel?
Remeber when you could pay for cable so that you didn't have to watch all the comercials? Remeber when you could get a customer service card and get a discount, instead of needing one to pay just under market value instead of 10% over market value? They might give people a discount on insurance until it is adopted, and then they are going to check the records and everything on there will be another reason to raise your rates. Even if you are a perfect driver, there will be times when you need to accelerate or brake. The current system can't tell what the speed limit was, so all that "hard acceleration" is the type of behavior they will look at, or the time you go out of state and the speed limit is 5 miles over the maximum speed in your home state.
I could see where you could use the information in a court case, but then why couldn't you submit your data. The other person may or may not consent to a search. If your data shows that you were driving correctly, now you have a reasonable cause to get a court order for the other guys data. At that point it would follow all the same laws as physically searching your vehicle
If you don't want the information exposed if you are at fault, just smash the self incriminating evidence. They can't use it against you if its in 500 different pieces.
To all of the /.ers who want to just remove the EDR. It's an integral part of the engine management computer. You can't remove it and have the car continue to function. I predict a future aftermarket business for replacement management computers without the data recording aspects.
But the answer to your question is no. A new law isn't needed.
The thing you have to realize is that there are very few "accidents" in traffic situations. There's a reason the police refer to them as "collisions" and not accidents--because usually someone has done/failed to do something that causes it. That usually involves recklessness or negligence on the part of the driver. Those actions ARE crimes, whether or not there was a specific intent to commit a crime. In my area the police are trained to immediately download the information from the EDR at the accident scene. No driver permission required, because it's part of the investigation of the cause of the collision. Police accident investigators have a handheld device that plugs into a port in the vehicle that downloads the data from the EDR for later analysis.
By the way, vehicles that are equipped with GPS services such as OnStar automatically call authorities in the event of a collision. Do you really believe that they couldn't also upload the EDR contents at the same time? I'm not saying they *do* that, but it's not inconceivable.
You could probably disable this by removing the CAN / ODB communication wires connected to the recording device. The problem is that GM is incorporated their black box into the air bag SDM module.
Tampering with that module my not be the brightest idea.
I know that Toyota sends information on their communication bus to the air bag module. For example there are occupancy sensors in the seats. Why fire the airbag for the passenger if there isn't a passenger?
So, again, disabling the communication lines to that module may be a bad thing.
Okay, I'm no expert, but I do know a little something about automotive control systems, and my understanding is that part of OBD-II is that vehicles record at least 30 seconds prior to and after any event that bears reporting; this is called snapshot data. In most systems, only one snapshot can be stored, and there are IIRC four levels of criticality; snapshot data is overwritten when a more critical message must be logged. At that point, the last 30 seconds of data is written from RAM and, if processing continues, the next 30 seconds are recorded. One of the things that can trigger this event is if the airbag computer indicates that the airbag has deployed.
Mind you, this is on 1996 and newer vehicles - and some vehicles went OBD-II before the deadline. I believe (just as an example) that the 1995 Nissan 240SX is among them.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
A lot of people think that somehow a recording black box producing evidence against you is "self-incrimination" (in case it was your fault in an accident), because the black box belongs to you and is your property. But this completely misunderstands what self-incrimination means.
Self-incrimination is forcing someone to orally testify against him or herself in questioning or trial -- a compelled confession for example, which in our early (colonial, for example) jurisprudence was unfortunately not a foreign concept, and is understood to be highly dubious by any informed jurist. It is limited to that specific act -- testifying against yourself.
For some reason, people think it applies to any act on their part that could demonstrate that guilt, or by extension even evidence produced by something in his/her possession or by someone of his/her acquaintance. That's simply not the case, and an awful reach.
As the caselaw says: a person is immune from having to provide evidence against him/herself. But that does not mean he/she is immune from having that evidence produced [by some other way]...
Consider the license issues and privacy issues with this software.
You dont own it, you have a right to use that can be removed,
they can look at what you are doing, yada yada yada...
I would bet that you wont own your car for much longer - the
Licence agreement around this data and these computer systems
will soon go the way of the software agreements that we put up with.
The good news is that perhaps one day we may see a GPL car.
Just one reason why this is bad
Denial of Licence (Due to speeding):
I'm from NYC originally (but anybody drives on a highway will understand), the posted speed limit is 65, yet the flow of traffic is 85 possibly 90.
Of course, if you do follow the posted speed limit, you run the risk of an accident due to the other drivers trying not to hit you, even in the slow lane.
So, you stay in the flow. This occurs over the course of several years, you've never been in an accident. Its time to renew your licence, so you go
to the DMV, where they ask to scan your car's black box (BB). After scanning your BB, you are told you are being denied a licence, or worse you are under
arrest for speeding X amount of times and must pay back fines plus court cost.
Yes I know some will think this is a great idea, but the reality is, with these BB, individual drivers have given up a bit more of their freedom for the
perception (and in some cases a reality) of security. Of course the smart thing would be to design cars with a lower top speed (but then who would
purchase them?)
This is just one possible scenario, but if this goes through, I would not be surprised to see this implemented short thereafter.
I'll close with a thought (though its not mine, but I understand the meaning) those who are willing to sacrifice a little freedom deserve no freedom.
Regards,
MBC1977,
(US Marine, College Student, and Good Guy!)
Regards,
MBC1977,
During one of my many refactorings, I neglected to substitute properly and created an exemplary digital palimpsest. Please pardon this protruding word, the relic of a former edit.
Replies on Slashdot are often constructed in a haphazard manner and are rather protean as a result; you really should be reading in the context of my other statements. If you still can't understand the meaning, parse with the following hint in mind:
s/ostensible/actual
Just in time for the gas to run out. They can't give me my flying car, but they can give the NSA an event log of my location to crossreference with my phonecalls.
--
make install -not war
What needs to be required here is that the black box data cannot be released without the owner's signed approval. And that retaliation cannot be taken against a car owner who refuses to release this data. Anything less is not enough.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Call it by its correct name the "Air Bag Control Computer".
Feel free to disable it. It is usually under the drivers seat.
Of course you loose the air bags. But you corpse will be free of big brother after the acciddent.
There is no "Black Box" in passenger cars.
The air bag computer logs events leading to the air bag deployment.
This protects / informs the car companies. Other uses are incidental.
It is funny how all the complaining about Black Boxes created a law stanardizing them.
2011 should be interesting. All in or all out?
I suspect in the future this could make or break a traffic case against the driver. It could also cause a drivers insurance to go up. Don't expect insurance company's to drop the premium, just because you have been racking up brownie points behind the wheel. Eventually it wouldn't surprise me if insurance company's run out to your vehicle grab the data, and then say... Lets see what kind of driver you are, and then we can show you the deal we can give you." Passing the laws telling the insurance company's they are restricted in the data they can collect, and rules that say they can't do this just gives them more incentive to find the loop holes around the new laws. As a matter of fact it's just a matter of time before the data is in any ones hands that wants it bad enough.
I regularly travel the highways and I always stay within 3 MPH of 65. Never have I been in an accident or even been close to someone rear ending me. Speeding causes accidents. Going 35 causes accidents. Going the proper speed does not.
A black box does not provide a complete picture of the conditions during an accident. If, like me, you drive a small and very maneuverable car, you're not going to just coast along at the limit and trust your airbags in a your-car-versus-big-SUV impending collision, you're going to maneuver and evade. And sometimes that maneuver will require a brief burst of speed. All the black box will say in that instance is that you exceeded the speed limit; it won't show the surrounding conditions that made it a good choice. I've had three such near misses in the mere 5 months since I got my car. Drivers of large vehicles tend to have a blind spot for anything whose roofline is below the hood of their own vehicle, and it's skillful manuevering that has saved the day in every case. Reckless speed kills, I'll be the first to agree with that, but not all speed is reckless speed.
I think I will install one of these into my Yugo!
Now somebody has to explain to me why they require several years to inform customers. 2007, or 2008 would be quite reachable as target dates.
I think you missed the part that mentioned common stamndards, perhaps a common interface as well.
I know BMW has 'em, and used to invalidate your warranty when necessary... one poor hap got caught down shifting from 6th to 3rd while doing 100, over-revving the engine and no more free service for him...
This has been installed in cars for quite soom time already! In VW and Audi the Air Bag Control modules store up to two crash events and have been this way for a number of years. The upside to all of this only VW can retrieve this data. They have a couple of people that this is all they do is examine this data for law suites both public and private. I would worry more about your car if it has a GPS than a crash data recorder!!
Sorry buddy, diddling choir boys is most certainly not considered honest and law-abiding.
Every time I hear someone say this, I think of how boring or how stupid they truely are.
Someone hates these cans.
is find these "black boxes" and wrap/attach each to a message, in a heat/moisture resistant medium, which reads:
The whole procedure will be videotaped, and the video stored in a bank safe deposit box where all access is logged.
Maybe just put a big red button on your dash. If its the other guys fault, leave it so you have evidence that it was his or her fault.
If you did it, hit the button and light that puppy up. You have a constitutional right to not incriminating yourself.
This is just one more form to sign when buying a car. It'll get lost in the shuffle, nobody will remeber its there.
Suppose you get involved in a wreak, then a lawsuit or criminal proceeding. It's OK to use data which both cars provide, but what if one car collects more data than the other?
Data which is provided by only one car should only be usable for proving innocence. To prove guilt should require that equivalent data be available from all vehicles involved in the incident.
The people who pay for this technology are you and me. Even though you might disable your chip in your car after purchase, guess what? You paid for it! Its sort of like the GSM chips in your cell phone; they are required by law to be there but have you seen any handy built in tools or applications in a cell phone to take advantage of the chip for the CONSUMER?
I mentioned this to an intelligence agent; he said the money comes from the consumer and it is 'money well spent'.
It won't ever belong to you. "Your honor this person is tampering with the car's safety system." Pretty much says it all.
You can tamper all you like with your car's safety system -- you own the car. However, depending on which systems you disable, it will probably not pass inspection if you do so, and would not be legal to operate on a public street.
Yes, but don't fsck with the black box. Kind of like people rewinding odometers, it will be forbidden.
You can tamper with your odometer all you like. It's yours to do with as you please. What is illegal is selling the vehicle without an accurate disclosure of the vehicle's mileage. If you alter (or break) the odometer but keep other records of mileage, and disclose the odometer situation and records to the person you sell the car to, that's perfectly legal.
You are lucky to have such thought provoking friends, but I'm afraid the individual has no standing.
At least the OP's friend is asking realistic legal questions. You're making crazy statements that have no relationship to the law whatsoever.
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
If you've been accident free for 30 years, it means that you either don't drive much, or that you're very lucky. It only takes one bad driver to cause an accident, yet many accidents involve more than one vehicle. When you do the math it adds up to even the best of drivers getting into an accident every several years on average. And that doesn't even take mechanical failures into account. What if you have a blow-out?
If you drive for long enough you will get into an accident. That means at some point in your life somebody will be interested in your black-box data.
Now, you may say, you don't break any traffic laws, so the box is still in your favor. Two words. Bull. Shit.
Traffic law is nebulous. There are laws against "Driving too fast for conditions" (Translation: you are always in violation of the speed limit law if you are in an accident for any reason), "Failure to drive in the established lane" (Translation: If you have a blowout and spin off the road, you broke the law. I personally have been ticketed for this, and it has taught me never to call a cop when I get a flat, even if I think I may be blocking traffic slightly), and "Driving recklessly" (Translation: You're gulity of a traffic violation if any traffic officer says you are, or if you get into an accident for any reason). It is technically impossible for these boxes to prove that you haven't broken the law. They can only be used against you.
You think the data will only be interesting in an accident? How long until insurance companies give a discount for showing them the data? And if the data isn't immaculate, what do you think will happen? If you live in a state where competition is regulated out of the system, I'm sure they're dying to get some dirt on you to raise your rates. Shortly thereafter, the discounted rate for showing your perfect blax-box data will increase to the old 'regular' rate anyway, and suddenly you will effectively be charged for your driving privacy, even if your driving is completely safe and your record is clean. I have a completely clean driving record, and my insurance rates are low enough, thank you. I don't need a device installed in my car that is a big excuse for my insurance company to rase my rates for no good reason.
Enforcement is a terrible way to influence behavior anyway. Look how well it is working on our roads already, or in the war on drugs, or... Well, take your pick. We would be better off making the driving test more difficult, and making people have more experience before allowing them onto the roads unaccompanied. Of course there's a bit of a chicken and egg problem there, but it can be overcome. If people were better trained, our traffic laws coul be less arbitrary too. Of course that would cut off a big chunk of government revenue from traffic fines, but if you ask me, that's a good thing anyway. I don't think they should be allowed to keep those fines in the first place due to the obvious conflict of interest.
I worked for a lab that did the automated testing of airbag controllers and though you are all jumping to the "Evil" conclusion (and putting on tinfoil hats) this is really not the case. Though I will concede these records stay arround for use if some really serious accident were to occur, and some insurance agency with really deep pockets wanted to get the evidence, it could... but that is not why these are in the airbag controller in the first place (that is where the EDR or event data recorder lived on the vehicles I tested controllers for lived) The reason these are in your vehicle is actually very simple. Think of all the scenarios that occur in a car. Gravel raod, railroad tracks, potholes, ect... you do not want your airbags going off just because you hit a minor bump in the road, or even if you "crash" but at a very low speed (like backing into a pole). The conditions you want to fire the airbags is a very precise set of circumstances. With newer cars that have curtian and many other airbags too, it also wants to take into account "is the car upside down" and such. In order to make the most accurate assessment possible, and thus have the least false positives possible, as much data must be recorded for consideration as possible.... RPM, Orientations, TIRE PRESSURE, ... the list is long. The catch is only 10 seconds or so is usually kept.... just enough for a crash/pre-crash record.... I know this is slashdot, and we (yes me too) usually assume it is the government/big brother watching and trying to control us, but for a change, this is nothing but trying to make cars as safe as can be. It just so happens a side effect of this is allowing insurance agencies to get a better glimpse of what was really going on... but really, is honesty ever really a bad thing? If somebody rear ends you, and said they were going 25mph, and your accelerometer/ their EDR said they were going 50mph wouldn't you want that to be known by the judge? If not... enjoy you will probably be enjoying your airbags a lot more if you live on bumpy roads or near train tracks.
"If you're terrorist free, why would recordings of all your telephone conversations be interesting?"
Private activity spied on "If you're treason free, why would a log of all your internet activity be interesting?"
Private activity spied on, opinion you want to keep for yourself spied on "If you're not searching for child porn, why would a database of all your searches/web browsing being released to the general public be interesting?"
Private activity spied on
"If you're accident free, why would the data be interesting?"
PUBLIC activity spied on
Not only this is what you do in public, so no privacy is involved, but this is an activity you engage in COMMON with other public entity (aka:driving). You have no expectation of privacy in public and are expected to respect law. Now if they enforce law more strongly I could not care less from your whining, after the 3rd FREAKING ACCIDENT of a driver swerving/cutting my lane/bumping me from behind. Maybe if driver knew they had a bigbrother under thier butt watching the last 30 sec of what they did they would be a bit more carefull instead of being irresponsible immature PRICK.
Oh, and comparing private acativity to driving and big brother is like crying wolf. Next time you cry wolf people will ignore you. In future reserve your energy for real privacy violation.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
I note an implied permission/request in that law to make sure your car has a black box to start with. Given that I'm not in control of that box (that law isn't helping here) I'm not too happy with that - not because I'm doing something illegal, but because I have no idea what it records, how it does it AND HOW RELIABLE THAT INFORMATION IS.
It's all very well stating what data the box needs to provide (again, this implies that it HAS to provide - what controls are applied?), but I'd recommend anyone subjected to abuse of this data to force disclosure on method and technique of recording first.
After all, it appears nobody is interested in what calibration has been applied, what sample rate's used, what error rate the black box itself has - yet the push seems for it to become legally admissable data.
Fundamentals..
Insert
No lorry drivers? Maybe I should have read every last comment, but I only searched for 'tacho', 'truck' and 'lorry'. In the UK, all Heavy Goods Vehicle (HGV) drivers are obliged to carry tachographs, and produce them (I believe) on demand from the police. There may be more than that to it, I only know that much from hitch-hiking! The tacho shows speed over time (can't think what else), and can be used against the driver who speeds or exceeds the permitted driving durations.
Neither Corvette nor Mustang are designed in any significant fashion for racing. I've been on product development teams for both. Durability requirements were pretty much the same as for any sporty derivative, which are slightly higher than for a sedan due to the low profile tires.
Recently available at a Mercedes dealer near you (S class I think). They've stopped it now.
Let the owner choose to have the damned thing ripped out of the car totally. Its my car, should be my choice. Its NOT a public saftey issue like brakes or taillights are, so its not required.
i bet that violates some stupid 'tampering' law somewhere.
I wonder when these things become mandatory on ALL cars, regardless of age, to get a plate.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Dude, if _you_ do 65 in a 35 zone, you'll be the one causing the accidents.
A quote I got from a retired Police driving instructor: "Speed doesn't kill, impact does."
Driving within your own limits and those of your vehicle is perfectly acceptable in the right circumstances. Though I wouldn't suggest using this argument if you're pulled over.
Awesome headline!!?!
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
*cell phone rings with Black Eyed Peas, My Humps ringtone*
...
"Hello?"
AHHHHH!
*crash*
Not much evidence for what happens.
How about if the data were stored on flash memory -- just a normal memory card in a socket by the other fuses. Store the data in a simple, delimited ASCII format, and overwrite as needed. Have the files digitally signed by the black box, and watermarked with a time-stamp to verify the authenticity of the data. Now, in the event of an accident, I can decide wether to pop the flash and step on it, or use it as evidence. It's my data, collected by my black-box, I can do what I want to with it. In addition, now when I want to see what the nitrous-boost does to my acceleration, I can just add a larger memory card (to allow recording minutes rather than seconds of data), take my car to the track, and then view the results on my home computer. Having accelerometers etc. in a car is potentially very useful for performance tuning IF I COULD USE THE DATA.
My brother is a mechanic. He tells me it's quite fun when a customer who has screwed their car says they were 'just driving' and the blackbox in their Camry says they were doing 150 km/h.
You need to demand a refund from whatever college you attended.
I have nothing to hide...that is actually a close second in my book to...the government never makes mistakes.
People merging from the on-ramp appreciate that because I'm not barreling towards them at 85.
YHL
HAND
These numbers are totally invented, of course, but guess what most people would choose: option 3, at least if the popularity of supermarket discount cards where giving lots of personal information saves you some some money on groceries. If people are willing to trade privacy for discounts, why not let them?
The point is that though you may have a "right" to keep somethings private, but you also cannot expect to hold onto that right vigorously and get bargain-basement prices on things at the same time. Insurers would presumably be happy to have more data to charge rates which more accurately reflect their risks. If you willingly provide data that shows that you drive under 65MPH all the time, etc., in exchange for lower rates, that seems like a reasonable plan.
It's psychosomatic. You need a lobotomy. I'll get a saw.
"You were on the marketing team? "
No, I'm an engineer, suspensions on Mustang, engines on Corvette.
"Your low profile tires comment makes absolutely no sense."
Because you don't know what you are talking about.
"They are indeed not designed for racing."
Thank you, that was my point.
" However, they are high" (ish) " performance vehicles (the Corvette more so) and they should be fully capable of being used in closed course events such as driver education (racetrack) and autocross.
Of course they are. But that's not racing. If you want to race a Corvette you replace almost every single component and body panel. It's a whole new car.
"It's hard to believe that the Corvette with its near supercar horsepower, handling, and braking is only being designed with slightly elevated durability targets."
Well, try really hard. Or become an automotive engineer.