U.S. Regulators Propose Black Boxes for All Cars

[JonnyDough]

Meanwhile, China looks towards the future with it's new high speed train. I really don't care about cars anymore. It's old technology. I want to just board an automated monorail and eat my breakfast on the way to work. Safe, fast, efficient.

 

[JonnyDough]

[citation][nom]elbert[/nom]Wow and next the boxes have wifi and our cars snitch on use. LOL my car reports I have broken the speed limit, not wearing a seat belt, late getting in my insurance, and didnt come to a complete stop at the stop sign. Sounds like they want more ticket revenue and cheaper means to collect the data.[/citation]

Or...maybe it's not all a conspiracy and the government is looking for ways to save money and lives. Hmm, that would just make too much sense.

 

[JonnyDough]

[citation][nom]sykozis[/nom]If you're in an accident, probable cause allows for search and seizure without a warrant....[/citation]

Exactly right. Details from a black box will help insurance agents/police figure out who is at fault and what happened. Sometimes families are left with a deceased loved one from a head on collision and nobody knows what exactly happened.

 

[JonnyDough]

[citation][nom]michaelssw[/nom]Yea I wouldn't dream of riding one of those around my military infested area, those guys merge first and ask questions laterNothin against the military, just sayin[/citation]

They're young, conceited, and reckless. That doesn't denote military anything. That denotes youth, about anyone under age 25 according to insurance pricing.

 

[rantoc]

[citation][nom]velocityg4[/nom]Makes me glad I drive old cars. It's bad enough there are cameras all over the place. Now they need to put monitoring equipment in our cars. Why don't they just shove a leash up our arses and get it over with?[/citation]

Its better to take several smaller steps and make people somewhat angry each time than do the big one at once and have a revolution on the hands... People are fast to forget or to stupid to sum up the past 10-20 years of changes.

 

[cosmic101]

This type of thing could be used for good but will most likely be used by insurance companies unfortunately just to reduce claims and increase their profits

“Those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.” - Benjamin Franklin

 

[zakaron]

These devices are nothing new. These recordings have been done for years and are not for "tracking" people. They only record based on crash criteria and will only save data if an airbag has been deployed. Can this be abused? I'm sure it can, but if you actually read the paper it describes the detail of when how and who these recordings take place. It also states that 92% of vehicles already have such capability since the voluntary framework was set in place back in 2006. In fact, and this is copy & pasted right from the paper, they have been collecting since 1999.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\45\ Since the beginning of EDR data collection at NHTSA (late
1999 through January 2010), over 7,600 EDRs have been imaged through
our various programs. The programs include: the National Automotive
Sampling System Crashworthiness Data System (NASS-CDS), the National
Motor Vehicle Crash Causation Study (NMVCCS), Special Crash
Investigations (SCI) and Crash Injury Research and Engineering
Network (CIREN).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

This has also most recently assisted Toyota diagnosing its acceleration problem, which lead to its massive recall. As technology gets more complex, more complex methods of diagnostics will be needed. I know older folks who grew up with carburetors probably complained about the same thing when OBD was introduced and how that collects data from sensor input.

On a side note, I would not want a tracking system to always be on which is more intrusive (like on-star or equivalent). So I guess there is a line that must be drawn, how much safety for how much privacy. Where does it become intrusive?

 

[hannibal]

Tracking is not only bad thing. It would allow guite easy way of tracking stolen vehicles, is the tracking system is not too easily removeable... But the balance is hard thing to achive...
So this thig would start doing something when the situation allready is on? In that case it is one minute late! More important is to know what things leaded to the accident. So that this would work this device has to have alltime recording feature that gets erased if nothing happens...
Still some stems and pults have to be tightened in here...

 

[Kami3k]

A lot of nut cases around here.

If you hate things like GPS and what not so much then GTF off the internet.