Hmmm, I wonder what could possibly go wrong with this ...
GM backs 'black boxes' bill
Requiring vehicle data recorders would help crash investigations
General Motors Co. supports legislation to require so-called "black boxes" in vehicles to collect crash data, and it is willing to support additional "reasonable" auto safety legislation.
Meeting with reporters Friday, GM's new vice president for government relations, Robert E. Ferguson, said the company backs legislation in the works from Rep. Gene Green, D-Texas, to mandate event data recorders.
"I think EDRs ought to be in every car," Ferguson said. "Devices ought to be readily available so that law enforcement can find out what happens to vehicles involved in crashes."
Similar to black boxes on airplanes, auto recorders collect data for the last five seconds of a crash, including vehicle speed and whether the driver was wearing a seatbelt and applied the brakes.
How much more Orwellian can this once "land of the free" get?
30 million cars now record drivers' behavior
"The problem is most people don't realize these devices are in their vehicle," says Eric Skrum, spokesman for the National Motorists Association in Madison, Wis. "That information can be used against you, and there's no sort of regulation about who owns that information."
Already, drivers have had data from their own cars used to convict them. Last month, Danny Hopkins of New York was sentenced to 5 to 15 years in prison for killing Lindsay Kyle after the black box in his Cadillac CTS indicated the car was going 106 miles per hour five seconds before the crash. Investigators originally thought the car was going only 65 to 70 miles per hour. In St. Louis, Clifton McIntire of Phippsburg, Me., pleaded guilty to manslaughter last month after the black box in his GMC pickup revealed that he was going 85 miles an hour before he slammed into the back of a Toyota.
"This is another example of where technology has outstripped the law and certain assumptions of how the world works," says Jay Stanley, director of communications for the Technology and Liberty Project at the American Civil Liberties Union in New York.
Some safety experts also worry about the wrong people using the data. While Mr. Osterman of the NTSB favors police investigators using black-box data in criminal investigations, he worries that private experts hired in civil litigation may have biases and could take the data at face value instead of cross-checking it.
Progressive, an auto-insurance company, is running a pilot program with 5,000 drivers in Minnesota using a device similar to CarChip. It records up to six months of driving data, including vehicle mileage, time of day, and speed. The program, called TripSense, lets drivers choose whether to hand over data from their recorders to the insurer. Based on their habits behind the wheel, they can get discounts on their premiums of 5 to 25%.
But once any data is collected, some worry that it might be subpoenaed. If a police officer pulls you over while you're not speeding, "will your EDR tell him that five miles or five days earlier you were?" asked AutoWeek magazine's Bob Gritzinger in a November article.
Recorder data may also present problems for drivers with automobile warranties. Some wonder if vehicle manufacturers are using safety data to void warranties. Some people in Internet chat rooms have alleged Mitsubishi is doing just that to those who drive its racy Evolution VIII in amateur weekend races.
H/T to Karen De Coster who says:
Of course, libertarians interested in this issue know the real reason for the black box tyranny – so the state can record the events of individuals and use the information against them to back up its threats, extortion, and criminal charges. Each little movement will be recorded, giving the state an immense amount of information on your whereabouts, your hobbies, your friends, your job, and your schedule. These data recorders will record your actions so that so-called “experts” can interpret your behavior and spin the story on you any way they wish.
Pretty soon, we won't even be able to use our own private property (car) without the government's nose up our arse. And everything we say and do will be used against us.
