Black Box in your new car?

[45nut]

http://in.reuters.com/article/govern...BrandChannel=0

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration chief David Strickland told a congressional hearing on Thursday that the regulator is considering whether to make "black boxes" mandatory for all new vehicles. [ID:nN11246251]

The devices can capture data on speed, braking effort and other details which can be vital in reconstructing accidents.

Toyota has recalled more than 8 million vehicles globally to address the risk that accelerator pedals on a range of its vehicles could become stuck because of a loose floor mat or a glitch in the pedal assembly.

Unintended acceleration in the company's Toyota and Lexus vehicles has been linked to at least five U.S. crash deaths since 2007. Authorities are investigating 47 other Toyota crash deaths over the past decade.


No way in hell am I driving a vehicle with LOJAC, ONSTAR or a black box.

What say you to more unconstitutional abuse of power?

[ampaterry]

I say SCREW THEM.

Consider this:

MANY of the systems in todays vehicles are 'drive by wire'.
That means that the days when you pushed on a pedal and it moved a rod which pushed the brake shoe into the brake drum are OVER. In the interests of ABS, the brake now merely REQUESTS a braking action of the main computer, and it decides whether or not to allow it, and how much to allow. Some anti-skid systems even apply brake action when you have not touched the brake pedal!

So what the heck will a 'black box' show?
It can only show what the computer TELLS it to show -
IOW, if your floor mat prevents the brake pedal from being depressed, the black box will show NO BRAKING ACTION on your part, because the computer never received the signal to brake.
If the accelerator pedal, due to a design fault, sticks in the FULL ACCELERATION position, the black box would report that you had it floored at the time of impact, because that is the signal that reached the computer.

This system would be worthless in many cases of vehicle malfunction, attributing them to driver error.

How do they work fairly well on aircraft?
Because aircraft have backups on top of redundant systems, and the box monitors them all, along with cockpit conversations.
Put all that in a car, and only our elected officials will be able to afford to drive one.

[Agentwil]

We have these on our government vehicles and they have ended and saved many jobs because they capture braking, steering, and speed info before crashes.

[pinecone70]

How about starting with better quality control when building vehicles....

[JohnTheCalifornian]

Those black boxes are a nuisance. They are installed in all the trucks where I work. Not only do they record data(which is all the time, not just before crashes) as mentioned above, and they can also be tracked by gps. Its just another excuse of public safety the governement is using to take away more of our rights and freedoms.

[ampaterry]

Originally Posted by Agentwil

We have these on our government vehicles and they have ended and saved many jobs because they capture braking, steering, and speed info before crashes.

How do they obtain this info?
From the cars computer, right?
So they do NOT monitor what the DRIVER is doing, but rather what signals the COMPUTER is getting - which may or may not be an accurate depiction of what the driver is doing.

ie:
Driver has removed his foot from the accelerator, which is stuck down by a bad bearing in the pedal.
The computer records he was in full acceleration mode.

No thanks.

[Big ugly]

Here is a quick story about on star. An older couple that are friends with my grand parents had a little problem with their onstar on their Cadilliac. Alene started her car and backed it out of the garage, got out of the car and went into the house to get her purse. Thomas was getting set to mow the lawn and hit the front bumper of the car with the mower. Not enough to deploy the air bags but enough to marr the paint up. Three minutes later the engine died, shortly after that the fire department and an ambulance showed up to their house. Also they got charged with the deployment of the emergencey call.

Also these services have the ability to be linked to the whoever want to be linked to it. For instance, if the SHTF and you are on a watchlist by the federal Gubberment say for beeing on this forum, and they want to find you. Bam your found via your car. Also they have the ability to disable your car so you cant go anywhere.

[Bobitis]

When are they going to start putting black boxes on your doors?

I'm sure there's a geek out there that will find a way to overide the box and become quite wealthy.

I was told once that the computer in my Chevy truck would overide any adjustments I tried to make to it. The truck suffered from pre-ignition from the day I bought it. I sent it in a dozen times and always got it back with the same problem or worse. I got fed up and asked what would happen to my warranty if 'I' adjusted the timing. I was told it would have no effect due to the computer.

Well, my mechanical background told me that turning the distributor is a mechanical function, which in turn affects other mechanical functions. So I grabbed my tools and gave it a twist. Worked like a charm.

There're simply too many electronics in todays vehicles already.
Time to get back to mechanical.

[dge479]

Originally Posted by Bobitis

There're simply too many electronics in todays vehicles already.
Time to get back to mechanical.

This above comment sums it up in a nutshell. If these "Toyotas" had just had a cable conected on 1 end to a pedal and 1 end to the throtle plate this all could have been avoided, but once again in an effort to protect us from ourselves people died.
Somehow I have drien hundreds of thousands of miles in large old american cars, often with drum brake, not a hint of ABS,Traction,ESP,On Star etc and never had an accident that was of my own doing nor one that any of this crap would have gotten me out of.
Go back to mechanical, and make people learn to drive.

[Agentwil]

Originally Posted by ampaterry

How do they obtain this info?
From the cars computer, right?
So they do NOT monitor what the DRIVER is doing, but rather what signals the COMPUTER is getting - which may or may not be an accurate depiction of what the driver is doing.

ie:
Driver has removed his foot from the accelerator, which is stuck down by a bad bearing in the pedal.
The computer records he was in full acceleration mode.

No thanks.

Not sure but it captures a lot of info. The info plus what the driver and witnesses report combined seems to give a good record of what happend. It's not the end all be all but it can aid in an investigation along with physical evidence.

[cycloneman]

I say put them in the Kennedy cars first.

Seriously I will not buy a vehicle with onstar or anything else.

[Trouble 45-70]

Can onstar be disabled? ie. the transmitter and/or receiver.

Automobiles designed by Congress. What can you expect? We are lucky it's no worse than it is.

Of course, an EMP will disable all Congressionaly mandated vehicles. My Ford tractor will be OK unless there is a blast effect.

[Big ugly]

It can never be fully disabled. When you register your car with the BMV when you get your tags the Vin # is issued out with the plates. So if you have correct plates on your car and you are runnin from the law it can be disabled then and there. Now on a car with swapped tags all the officer or officers has to do is run their GPS location and then the capibility is there to shut down all cars with the system within a certain area around the car. Even theough you have to pay to have it activated as long as the battery is in the car there is a way to track the car. The new systems that come out after 2008 are hard wired to the car and it takes some seriouse amout of work just to get to the wires hooking the system to the computer. If you disconnect the onstar system from the car without haveing it bypassed correctly the car simply will not run, the computer in the car will not even let the car fire or turn over. The system can be removed but it takes a special code and and program to get the cars computer to over ride that it has been disconnected and each system is car sensitive, meaning each car with the system has its own override code unique to that car so some shade tree mechanic or theif cannot disconnect it.

As far as the part I wrote about the LEO's I belive my information is correct, If there is any SHP or LEO's here mabbe they can help me confirm this.

[ponycar17]

Actually, working with automated systems and fault feedback I often find that operators of equipment are woefully inept and not able to follow even the simplest of instructions. You'd be surprised how well you can diagnose real problems if you look at the data provided by fault feedback systems. Operators of equipment (any equipment) are normally button pushers and could not describe what they did if their life were depending on it.

We own an '07 Camry currently. We're still trying to figure out how dumb a person has to be regarding mechanical workings of a car to fully depress the accelerator, such that it would stick in a position to cause rapid acceleration. Sad...

[BobMcG]

"The devices can capture data on speed, braking effort and other details which can be vital in reconstructing accidents."

Why yes, of course, of course.

Nice excuse for the use of the equipment. They (the gov. and whomever else comes running to the defense of) can tell it to someone who buys into their line of horse crap.

It smells like and is another excuse to track and monitor people while going down the road to gaining more and more control over people. Nothing more and nothing less.

More and more control for the man and less and less freedom and privacy for the individual is what the gov. has become all about. And I don't mean just recently either. Of course mind you everything being done with our best interest at heart. You know, like in the name of safety or to save the planet or for the children etc. . Just save it. We've heard it all.

[Oldeyes]

I herewith stand ready to be corrected by automotive electronics folks out there who are more in the know, but I was under the impression that all vehicles with some type of air bag installed already have some type of a rudimentary black box capability already installed. Ostensibly, these most rudimentary black box devices have just a minimal amount of vehicle operational system monitoring memory that is constantly being overwritten as the car is driven. And then once that the air bags are deployed for any reason, the entire contents of the on board black box memory is frozen until the entire system is reset. The minimal memory in the airbag controller keeps track of most of the vehicles operational parameters and can be read out by under court order by law enforcement technicians.

[ampaterry]

Originally Posted by BobMcG

"The devices can capture data on speed, braking effort and other details which can be vital in reconstructing accidents."

Why yes, of course, of course.

Nice excuse for the use of the equipment. They (the gov. and whomever else comes running to the defense of) can tell it to someone who buys into their line of horse crap.

It smells like and is another excuse to track and monitor people while going down the road to gaining more and more control over people. Nothing more and nothing less.

More and more control for the man and less and less freedom and privacy for the individual is what the gov. has become all about. And I don't mean just recently either. Of course mind you everything being done with our best interest at heart. You know, like in the name of safety or to save the planet or for the children etc. . Just save it. We've heard it all.

What he said!!!!!!!