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."

Comments

Advice

[stanlyb]

So, the first thing you should do after a car accident is to find and destroy its black box, so your insurance company would have no way to avoid paying the, what, insurance?

Re:Advice

[dead_user]

Because they're too stupid to just read their owners manual and disable the seat belt alarm with the computer, rather than manually bypassing the sensor. It was trivially easy to disable the alarm on my mustang. Do be fair, I usually wear my seatbelt, but when I don't, I'm intelligent enough to know I don't have it one without a stupid fucking alarm going off every 15 seconds making sure I'm aware.

Re:Advice

[TheCarp]

Well.... I knew someone who was in a car accident.... now.... don't get me wrong, this is one person, in a rather fantastic accident of the kind that doesn't happen every day.... but who escaped serious injury by not wearing it...as she litterally.... saw another car coming to tbone them, and moved aside to another seat....had she stayed where she was, or been belted in.... she would have likely been seriously injured by the impact.

Ok... silly I know...fantasitcal....thats not why I bring it up. After this event, she stopped wearing a seatbelt. In fact, she had massive panic attacks and was unable to take her driving test for a year because she was too paniced to drive at all with a seatbelt on.

I don't suggest this is that common, but, I would suggest that individuals have their reasons. Their reasons may not make sense, their reasons may be entirely emotional. Like mine, I wore mine every time I was in a car, trained by my parents. Stopped the very day I heard that a law had been passed, and I have only occasionally worn one in the decade or so since.

I know I should... I know its safer, but, it just pisses me off that some nosy busibody thinks what I do is any of his business.

Its emotional, its silly.... but we all have our reasons. Though...I put up with the ding. ding. ding.....

Re:Advice

[JWSmythe]

    There are better seat belts, that do a better job of restraining you. Most people wouldn't want them in their passenger car though.

    I only installed them in one of my cars. On the weekends, I did some amateur class racing in my street car. The shoulder belt was worthless on the left turns. It was much nicer with the belts installed, I didn't have to brace myself while taking the turns. I also couldn't reach the radio or air conditioning controls while belted in.

    Seat belts do save lives. You have a better chance of survival firmly strapped to your seat, than you do being ejected from the vehicle, and potentially your own vehicle landing on top of you.

    Passenger car seat (lap and shoulder) belts do a pretty good job of restraining you, while allowing comfort. The twisting that can occur during a wreck, due to only having one shoulder restrained, is a lot less than what could happen without it. I'll have back and neck pain forever from a wreck I was in over 10 years ago, but I did survive relatively unhurt.

    I've had to give practical demonstrations to kids on why they have to wear their seatbelts. They'll argue, so I'll do a brake check at about 30mph (after checking for cars around me). Although they insist they can catch themselves, they always end up on the floor asking what happened. They usually don't try to argue with me about it after that.

Re:Advice

[TheCarp]

> As for allowing people to decide for themselves, I'm all for it... as long as we-the-people don't have to pay for your hospital visit because you didn't
> wear the seatbelt.

I think it is generally a mistake to conflate these two, totally separate issues.

You see.... the public does pay for ER visits of the uninsured however, that has nothing to do with driving. We pay for ER visits of the uninsured whether they were in an accident and didn't wear a seat belt, or if they tried to blow their brains out, or just jumped out a window. When have we heard the issue of paying for ER visits of attempted suicides? Ever?

These people are WAY more personally responsible for those costs than someone who gets in an accident without a seat belt. Such a person maybe through lack of skill, or even through the actions of another driver, ended up in an accident. All they did was fail to take a precaution which, in the very unlikely event of an accident (which is all it was before the accident happened), might have reduced overall cost. However, a suicide? They did it themselves...to themselves.... on purpose.

Now, I don't care about either, I am more than happy to pay for Single Payer healthcare and just cover everyone, all the time. Suicides or not, seat belts or not, illegal immigrant or not, any human being that needs medical attention. Happy to do it, no qualms. I don't have that option, but hey, I would. In the mean time, I pay for private insurance.

What I don't get is how we allow this circular reasoning. Yes, the taxpayers pay for this....because they setup a system and laws that said they would pay for it. I don't see why deciding to pay for it, allows them to then turn around and use the fact that they pay for it as an excuse to mandate behaviour.

If I came to you today and said "Hey, I am going to just start paying you rmorgage for you, because I think its the right thing to do".... would you say that gives me any right to come by tomorrow and start telling you that you must take care of the house a certain way because, afterall, I am paying for it?

One does not follow from the other. Its a false connection.

Does the data reflect tires slipping on ice?

[Anonymous Coward]

If he was going that fast, he'd be dead. He didn't have a single scratch on him at the press conference. If the tires spin out on black ice, does the black box adjust for that? or would it just assume he's actually moving at the rate the tires are spinning?

Re:Asleep @ the wheel...

[Sez Zero]

At a auto racing school I attended, the "If you know you're going to crash" advice was to cross your arms on your chest and go limp. A death grip on the steering wheel is a sure way to break your elbows.

Re:Engineering

[jellomizer]

For most cars After 80mph driving gets very difficult. A while back I hit 100 on my car (long stretch, downhill, straight, and I could see for miles, and no cars) and at that speeds it was difficult to make the minor changes to keep me straight on the road. The Average Driver in the average car shouldn't be going much past 80mph on even on a good road. The Autobahn in Germany is design for high speeds which makes going at such speeds much safer, compared to the average Highway in the US. Which is designed for lower speeds.

Re:Rear view camera

[adolf]

Mind you, I reverse into the garage...my years in the Mafia taught me that being able to drive straight out is a potential life saver.

I disagree.

Unless you live at the end of a road and can therefore perform a proper balls-out drag launch from your garage, backing out is always better. It prevents the assailants from munging up the front of your car (no chance for the hood to obscure forward visibility) as you roar over them, and offers reasonable protection against the hollow-point bullets that such people are likely to be firing at that time without endangering any critical engine parts (which, at this point, are just as valuable as you are).

And reverse is generally geared lower, which allows for quicker acceleration in the first few critical seconds.

After all that, you've got choices: You can just make a quick partial J turn of the correct angle for the street in question and get the hell out of there driving forward (with little loss of momentum if executed correctly). Or keep reversing down the street while firing madly with your left hand hand, and either execute a high-speed J turn where appropriate, or a slower 3-point turn if conditions allow.

Choices are always good.

If overall speed in reverse is an issue, simply don't let it be: Mercedes-Benz has transmissions with two reverse gears for a reason and if you don't know that, you're just not doing it right.