Honestly Officer I was only doing 55 when I hit that car. You show up for your civil court date where you are being sued for inflicting whip lash on the person in the other vehicle. As the court case proceeds they bring in the Black Box from your totaled car and plug it into a PC and find out that you were actually doing 85 when you hit that car. Talk about being screwed.
Well it appears that car’s black boxes are making it to the Court Room. It won’t be long before you pull up to a police roadblock and they plug into your car download your violations and write you a fist full of citations on the spot. [USA Today]
I used to work for an automotive manufacturer. The airbag controllers work pretty much as described in the article. Their purpose is mainly for product liability (as in the cited Jerome Brown case). If this information can be retrieved and *interpreted accurately*, I see no reason it should not be used. As for having the data downloaded and getting a “fist full of citations”, it doesn’t work that way. Could the gov’t try to mandate it? They could try, but just look at the attention the issue is getting now, for just crash recording!
Re: Marc Rotenberg’s (EPIC) quote : “Invariably, the information is used against the driver.” Earlier in the article, a case was cited where the data helped acquit someone because it proved he was only going 60mph, not 90. I would say the data *helped* that individual.