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What a Black Box Data Dump Looks Like
An anonymous reader writes "Massachusetts Lt. Governor Tim Murray recently crashed his Ford Crown Victoria while reportedly traveling 108 mph. The car was pretty much shredded, but Murray walked away without major injuries. According to data from the car's black box, Murray and the Crown Vic experienced the equivalent of 40 gravities during the crash. The data contradicts the story he gave police. Maybe we should strap black boxes to all our politicians."
Open source all that info
Some luck was involved, but anything that and car that can handle a crash at 108mph ( a bazilion kph for those of you out of the US) is damn amazing. I love engineers. They have made our lives so much better and are so unappreciated.
I think they buried the lead here... 100mph, sans seat-belt, and he walked away? That's goddamn incredible. I've seen first hand what an accident at 170km/h looks like (on the Autobahn) and walking away seems basically impossible.
-- Let us endeavor so to live that when we pass even the undertaker shall be sorry. -- M. Twain
The black box is hard mounted to a solid part of the car. The black box and associated accelerometers stop hard.
A person in a seat, surround by air bags and wearing a seat belt does not stop nearly as hard.
Now if there had been no seat belt and no air bags .....
There's a disclaimer right there on page one:
Accident reconstructionists must be aware of the limitations of the data recorded... should compare the recorded data with the physical evidence...
Those disclaimers do mean things. The data was never intended to be used as a "black box"; That's purely media hyperbole comparing it to what's in an aircraft, which is designed to aid in accident reconstruction. The courts routinely dismiss GPS tracking data on phones used as evidence that the driver wasn't speeding because the device isn't meant to be used for that, and isn't precise enough anyway. An officer's radar gun, however, is.
That said... let us all look to the sky now and return to mumblings about conspiracies between or about the government and/or insurance companies.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Insurance companies with staffed lawyers with evidence of insurance fraud.
vs.
You with a single lawyer who is probably charging you an arm and a leg, who is working to make sure you are not locked up for life.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Or you could, you know, drive responsibly and treat your car like the potential deadly weapon that it is. So when the insurance company looks at the black box data, it matches your story.
As long as the data is read by an independent third party and made available to the driver (and his lawyer), the black box data shouldn't be something to fear.
The right to remain silent and not provide evidence against yourself applies only in criminal proceedings. (See, US Constitution, Amendment 5: "No person [...] shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself".)
Breach-of-contract is not a criminal case.
And if you sue them, you will bear the burden of proving that the circumstances that actually occurred obligate them to pay you. And they can put you on the stand and compel you testify under oath, even where that might be against your own interests.
Shit happens, right? So you are not going to honor this contract? Fine, will meet you in the court room.
Of course they will honor the contract. Specifically, they will honor part of the contract that says "this contract is invalidated if the customer deliberately sabotaged the vehicle".
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
So, you read the data and tried to interpret it, but didn't RTFA or look at the picture of the mangled car? Here's a hint, a 2g crash does not result in the right front tire being separated from what used to be a car. It was severe enough to bend the A pillars, but that probably happened while the car was flipping over twice. Yeah, it was probably just the stereo though.
Air bag.
The accelerometer attached to the car frame measured 40G. The driver's body would experience much less. What surprises me is surviving the subsequent rollover while not wearing a belt. People have been killed in much lower speed crashes getting bounced around the inside of a car or ejected.
Have gnu, will travel.
Why would you choose not to ride with an unobtrusive safety device that is statistically proven to increase your odds of surviving a crash by an order of magnitude? I mean, I wholeheartedly agree with the premise that it's none of the government's business whether or not you choose to wear a seatbelt, but honestly, logic and sense should compel you to wear one.
-Arthur
Cave ne ante ullas catapultas ambules
Our, you know, OP could RTFM: The retrieval of this data has been authorized by the vehicle's owner, or other legal authority such as a subpoena or search warrant...
No, it's not because they are too stupid to disable the seat belt alarm. It's because they are too stupid to wear their seat belt.
There is no "intelligent" excuse--or manner--for avoiding it. If you are driving long enough for the car to complain that you are not wearing your seat belt, then you are not making an intelligent decision.
Actually .. when I'm backing out of my garage, and my 100' entryway, I'm not wearing my seat belt as it prevent me from looking everywhere behind easily. As I wait for the garage door to close, the timer is already elapsed, and it starts beeping. When I'm done backing up, I fasten my seat belt. I believe there might be much more situations, but here's just one to break your argument..
Or you could go to a shop and have them modify the seatbelt for you, which would be the safer thing to do than squabble about minor laws when your safety is at stake.
I either have to break the law or ride in fear of instant decapitation from the seatbelt in case of a crash
You are suffering from irrational fear. If the accident is severe enough for a seatbelt to decapitate you, you will certainly not survive without the seatbelt.
On the other hand, it is not unreasonable that you will be in an accident of such severity that you would not be decapitated by a seatbelt but seriously injured or killed if not wearing it.
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Compare the results of a crash with someone who has used those comforting seatbelts to the results where no seatbelt was used. I think you'll agree that they provide a lot of protection. Most people would say they aren't especially comfortable; people only use them because they could save your life.
For what it's worth, I simply do not believe you. First of all, I wear my seat belt all the time, and I have absolutely no trouble at all with visibility. If you have to get out of your seat to see, you're doing it wrong. Second of all, disabling a sensor so that you don't have to put up with a few seconds of beeping is stupid. My guess is that you are, in fact, driving without your seat belt, and just making up a contrived circumstance to try to convince us that out of all of the people who do so, you're the one exception--the one person who isn't being stupid while doing so.
Yeah, I think not.
The sad thing is that you probably think, "What difference does it make? I'm only hurting myself." Individual liberty and all that, right? Well, 1) if you have kids, you're making a horrible impression on them. Someday if they don't buckle their seat because "Mom and/or Dad never did, and they never had any trouble," there's a pretty good chance that they get messed up at some point due directly to your negligence. 2) If you find yourself in a situation where it is difficult to maintain control of your car, such as roads with black ice, a tire blowout, etc., seat belts help keep you where you're supposed to be--behind the wheel, and not flailing about the cabin of your car. If you're doing the latter, there's a much higher chance that you'll plow into the poor innocent schmuck next to you. And 3) when you do have a wreck and get messed up and you exceed the limitations of your insurance company, who do you think will be paying for your medical bills? Yeah, that would be me and other people who have the gumption to wear seat belts. You could have just walked away from the accident with a bruised rib, but instead, we're having to support keeping your carcass alive on life support for who knows how many years.
Your individual liberty ends when you start being a danger to the public and a drain on much-needed resources. So seriously, please stop making excuses and just wear the damn thing. If not for yourself, do it for your kids (if you have any) and for the public-at-large.
P.S. If you google it, you can find anecdotes like this ad nauseum, but it's personal to me. Two years ago, I had a blowout (left rear wheel) in moderate traffic on I-85 just north of Atlanta, a pretty busy stretch of interstate. I was going highway speed, and spun out. I did a 1080 in the middle of the interstate, was hit by two other vehicles (an SUV and a large sedan), and my car was totaled. I was wearing my seat belt. Even during the accident, until my air bags deployed, I was able to exert minimal control over the car and keep from causing even more damage. I walked away with a sore rib and a small scratch on my thumb. If I weren't wearing my seat belt, there's a pretty good chance I would have been killed or, at best, eating through a straw for a long time. I've also had friend and relatives killed due to not wearing a seat belt.
There are a lot of BS laws passed that are dumb attempts and nannying you. This isn't one of them.
If you lived in a sensible country like Canada everyone would have medical care.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
Stop right there. This is hands down the shittiest advice I've ever seen posted to a forum that could get someone killed. I really hope you're trolling. Saying air bags aren't designed for seatbelt use is completely ignorant and life-threateningly wrong. In fact, it's quite the opposite, an airbag could potentially kill you if you use it without a seatbelt.
While I don't like calling people names in forums, you are an ignorant idiot that could get someone killed if they follow your advice and get in a wreck.
Passive restraint systems ARE without a shred of doubt designed for maximum effectiveness with the active restraints in place. It's a SYSTEM. You could, for example, fly over the steering wheel airbag if you're not wearing the belt. OEM seatbelts are designed with a very carefully calibrated amount of "stretch" to them that will give in a crash too. Changing these out is potential suicide. You are not a crash safety engineer, and god help us if you ever become one. Leave that to the pros. Wear your OEM, crash-tested seatbelts and never ever touch the airbag system.
"Most people would say they aren't especially comfortable
Oddly enough, I feel uncomfortable when I don't have a seatbelt on. It feels like nothing is keeping me in my seat. I know it's all in my head, but for me it's one more reason to wear the seatbelt.
None of them can see the clouds; The polished wings don't care.