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."

Comments

I like it.

[yagu]

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.)

Re:I like it.

[vux984]

If you're speeding then don't say you weren't, and the black box won't be used against you.

Gotcha... tell them you were speeding up front so they don't even have to look at the black box before assigning you some fault. (And perhaps writing you a speeding ticket; after all you confessed.)

The parent clearly said he was a safe driver.

What exactly does that mean? He never speeds?

What's safer: driving 5mph above the speed limit with traffic, or driving 5mph below* the speed limit (and thus 12+mph below the average speed of traffic)?

Hint: driving with traffic, unless it is driving inappropriately fast is safer.

* you'd have to drive around 5mph below to ensure that you never speed. If you tried to drive right at the speed limit you would still vary 2 or 3 mph due to grades, turns, traffic, etc. So to ensure you "never speed" you actually have to set your target a few mph below the limit. And doing 52-58 in a 60 when traffic is running at 65-70 *is* hazardous.

A Better System

[Digital Vomit]

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.

another new law

[Balthisar]

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?

Attorneys everywhere rejoice!!

[JonTurner]

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?

Re:Hysterical over nothing, data doesn't leave car

[Loconut1389]

while totally irrelevant, it lead to an interesting thought... the data in the recorder is a unique pattern generated by the drivers purposeful actions- eg the data was explicitly designed by the driver and therefore is automatically copyrighted on their behalf..

now perhaps that wouldn't fly in court, but it's an interesting thought.

Re:Hysterical over nothing, data doesn't leave car

[JesseMcDonald]

i don't think that argument would fly, but if it's a unique expression of the owner would it not also be self-incrimination?

I would argue that any unpublished recording or document should be considered equivilent to the memory of the person who made it; just as one cannot be forced to testify against oneself (divulge one's memories as evidence against oneself), one should not be forced to divulge private (audio, video, data) recordings that one has made. Such will undoubtably become even more important as we begin to develop ever more effective electronic (and possibly cybernetic) aids to memory, and as our technology for decoding the neural patterns in the human mind improves.

Perhaps one day we might discover a way to read a person's memory directly; will this technology be used to circumvent our laws against self-incrimination? What if the memories are encoded, not in human neural tissue, but rather in an electronic implant? Why should there be any difference? And if reading an electronic implant is considered self-recrimination, then why would an external memory device be any different? On the other hand, if one can subpoena the blackbox in the defendent's car, or the contents of the defendent's PDA or laptop, then what makes the defendent's biological memories special? Had we the technology, would it be right to submit the defendent's own memories as evidence? That would make a mockery of our laws against self-recrimination -- and yet we do the same today by seizing and entering into evidence the private documents and recordings of the defendant.

No offence is truly committed when the defendant is demonstrated guilty, provided that the infringement of the defendant's rights does not exceed the crime itself. However, should the defendant not be demonstrated guilty, then the infringement is entirely unjustified, and those responsible should be open to countersuit by the (presumably innocent) former defendant. This would go a long way toward curbing abuse of power in carrying out justice -- as would the addition of a requirement that the prosecutor be the victim of the crime (or the victim's appointed representative, but not the government), with clear (though not necessarily precisely measurable) damage as the basis for restitution (and possibly retribution; this is rather more controversial).