This came from the Washington Post, an estimated 25 million vehicles have black boxes and the owners don't even know it! California is the only State required to inform owners if there vehicle has one. Can someone in California tell us if the Lightnings are equipped with such a thing. The last 3 paragraphs (*) are the most informative.......

Government officials at the National Transportation Safety Board are trying to leverage an emotive incident to push regulations that infringe on American privacy and civil liberties.
On July 16, 2003, George Weller, 86, drove his car headlong into an outdoor farmers market in Santa Monica, Calif., killing 10 people and injuring 63. The safety board said last Tuesday that, based on its investigation of that accident, the government should require "black box" data recorders in all passenger vehicles. But officials failed to substantiate why the accident, while certainly tragic, proved a need for black boxes — which record vehicle performance and driver actions, such as brake activity, speed and whether seat belts were in use.

The board reached the logical conclusion that the driver plowed into the market after having mistakenly hit his car's accelerator, rather than the brakes. There were no signs of mechanical failure. Such a conclusion can be confidently reached without the aid of black boxes. Through old-fashioned police work, investigators can determine if brakes were used and can estimate the car's speed at the point of collision.
But even though the cause of the accident appears obvious enough, the board said investigators would have gained a better scientific understanding of the driver's behavior had his 1992 Buick LeSabre been outfitted with a data recorder. Just what kind of scientific understanding were they looking for?
That July 16, 2003, accident seems clear-cut. It was caused by driver error. An elderly man hit the wrong pedal, and no magic box would have saved the lives of the victims. It appears the safety board, which has only the power to investigate and make recommendations, picked that particular accident not because it technically supported its recommendation, but because of its egregious nature.

(*) The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which has the authority to make requirements, has correctly found that regulation requiring data recorders isn't necessary, since many automakers are including them anyway. An estimated 25 million vehicles are equipped with black boxes, though many consumers aren't aware of them.

(*) This points to another problem. Who does the information in the boxes belong to? In some states, authorities can seize the devices as evidence at a crash scene provided they have a warrant. Use of the black boxes could grow wider, and insurance companies could lay claim to their information as well.

(*) Lawmakers in more than 20 states have considered bills that would require dealers to notify consumers of the existence of black boxes in vehicles. California is the only state to pass such a measure. At the very least, consumers should be allowed to decide whether they want to purchase a car that could be used against them.

 

Where did you find this information? Would you post a link. I need to know when the law was passed stating CA has to inform owners if there is a "black box" installed in the vehicle.

 

I did some research on this a while back, and I do not believe Ford is using these, at least not in the trucks. (I think it is used only in OBDIII cars, as part of emissions compliance - in other words, the computer would store any time period of non-compliance in order to determine if you were (for example) removing the converters, and then replacing them for inspection).

Chevrolet is a big proponent of this technology and it is used in many of their vehicles, including the Corvette. It is similar to the "black box" technology used in airplanes.
Chevrolet claims it is mainly for diagnosing problems/repairs, but Chevrolet has been known to release the data to insurance companies in order to determine who was at fault in a crash, or at least what the throttle position was, whether the brakes were in use, ABS, etc, etc, etc, I believe they also data-log whether the seatbealt was in use, as well.
Also, Chevrolet has used the "black-box" data log to determine "use of the vehicle" in order to invalidate warranties, as it remembers things like top speed achieved, throttle position, etc, the idea being that if someone can make a determination that you were racing your Z-06, then they could invalidate the warranty.

 

Here is the link to the story. Sorry it is not the Washington Post, it was the times.

http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20040...0051-8462r.htm

 

Best's Insurance News
Copyright 2004 (c) A.M. Best Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.


Tuesday, February 3, 2004


AIA Calls for Wider Use of 'Black Box' Auto Data

WASHINGTON (BestWire) - Saying that they could increase safety and reduce fraud, the American Insurance Association has called for greater and more standardized use of so-called "black boxes" in automobiles to record information about the way cars are driven. Such devices, called electronic data recorders or EDRs, have been in autos since the 1970s and now are in an estimated 25 million to 40 million cars. But their usage is far from standard, and even the electronic engineers who design them haven't yet agreed on a standard interface for reading the devices, according to the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

The AIA is calling for that to change, and for wider use of the EDRs in cars and trucks.

In a meeting with the American Automobile Association, David Snyder, AIA's vice president and assistant general counsel, called for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to standardize the use of EDRs for cars and for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to make their use in trucks mandatory.

"Every day, motor vehicle crashes exact an enormous toll by causing deaths, injuries, and property damage," Snyder said in a statement explaining the AIA's position. "Auto insurance provides compensation for losses resulting from crashes, as well as financial protection against vehicle theft and other damages. Therefore, auto insurers' interests--increasing safety and preventing losses with tools such as EDRs--are directly in line with individual drivers, pedestrians, and other roadway users."

Data pulled from EDRs can be used to help accident investigations and to determine fraudulent claims, the AIA said. "With objective EDR data, insurers could determine fault more rapidly and resolve claims that should be settled, while contesting those for which their policyholders were not to blame," Snyder said.

The AIA also said that EDRs would speed the development of crash -avoidance systems, vehicle diagnostic systems and advanced medical-response capabilities. An EDR-like device, for example, could send paramedics information on how fast a car was going when it crashed.

The "black boxes" in cars differ from those in airplanes, in that they record data in a short loop, and a limited amount of data at that. When a car or truck crashes, the EDR stops looping the data and saves the data gathered during the five seconds prior to the crash and for seven seconds afterward. That information is stored in a microprocessor inside the airbag unit, usually in the steering column.

NHTSA installed the first EDRs in 1974 in 1,000 cars as part of a project to analyze low-speed crashes. Two years later, General Motors Corp. began installing the first of its "Sensing and Diagnostic Modules"--GM's proprietary name for its EDRs--to handle the deployment of a car's airbags and save data about the crash that caused them to inflate. The technology leapt forward during the 1990s, when GM put much more sophisticated recorders in its vehicles. EDRs now track whether seat belts are used, whether the brakes were depressed at the time of the crash, the position of the throttle, the speed of the car, the speed of the engine and what engineers call "delta-v" information, which are the changes in the car's velocity after impact. As of 2002, all GM cars contained EDRs, and Ford has them in many of its vehicle as well.

Consumer advocates have raised concerns about insurers getting their hands on EDR data, but the matter largely has been settled by the courts in favor of insurers and law-enforcement officials. (BestWire, Aug. 14, 2003).

Data from an EDR first was used to obtain a criminal conviction in May 2003, when a 47-year-old Florida man was convicted of manslaughter. Edwin Matos told police he was going no more than 60 mph when his car killed two teenage girls, but prosecutors used the EDR in his car to prove he was going about 114 mph in the seconds before the crash.

The use of EDR data also has been upheld in civil trials. The most widely known example in legal circles is Bachman vs. General Motors Corp., a 2002 case in which a woman sued GM, claiming a defective airbag caused her to crash. GM, using EDR data, showed that the airbag didn't cause her accident. An appellate court later ruled the data from the EDR device admissible.

 

St. Paul Pioneer Press
Copyright 2004, St. Paul Pioneer Press . All rights reserved.


Sunday, August 8, 2004


MAIN


Cars may be getting black boxes; Privacy and disclosure issues remain


BY CINDY SKRZYCKI
Washington Post

Planes have them. Trains have them. Some trucks do, too. And you may be driving around with one somewhere in your car and not know it. A rule the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration proposed this summer would blow the cover on "black boxes" in cars, standardizing by 2008 the kinds of information they collect and requiring the data be disclosed to those who own or lease the vehicles.

Also known by the auto industry and regulators as "event data recorders," or EDRs, these devices are connected to a vehicle's airbag system and can detect things such as the vehicle's speed, whether the driver was wearing a seat belt at the time of a crash and how the brakes were applied.

Though some insurers, consumer groups, medical professionals and the National Transportation Safety Board have been pushing to make the boxes mandatory, the NHTSA proposal is limited to requiring automakers who install the devices to collect the same data in the same format — 18 pieces of information in all.

The NHTSA says that there are 30 million of the devices on the road and that up to 90 percent of new models will have the recorders.

Under the proposal, carmakers would have to disclose in owners' manuals that the recorders have been installed and that they will record what happens in the seconds before and during a crash. They also would have to make it easier for researchers and crash investigators to access the recorded data, which can be difficult to mine.

John Hinch, a NHTSA safety engineer, said the agency isn't interested in the information to determine who might be at fault in a crash — as insurers or family lawyers might be — but in the vehicle's speed and what happened in the split seconds before the crash.

"We will have a better understanding of cause and effect and better rules in the future. EDR will allow us to build safer cars," Hinch said.

The leader in EDR technology is General Motors Corp. The car company, which has used the technology in a limited capacity since the 1970s, now equips all its models with the feature. Ford Motor Co. and Toyota have some of the capability. Chrysler has downplayed the recorders and said only a few of its models are collecting crash data.

Insurers, consumer groups and manufacturers have a variety of opinions about the usefulness of the data and how it should be used. Supporters of collecting the data think that safety research, car design and accident investigations would be enhanced by standardized information that one day could be centrally collected and analyzed.

Law enforcement officials regard it like DNA or a video camera in a bank — valuable evidence.

"They are increasingly being used in litigation. It can be a key piece of evidence. This would revolutionize third-party claim settlements," said David Snyder, vice president of the American Insurance Association, which represents 400 auto insurance companies. "But their greatest value is in safety research."

Some carmakers are dubious about the rulemaking proposal. They predict it will discourage the expanded use of event data recorders simply because of questions about who owns the data, the security of the information and how consumers will feel about its collection.

Robert Strassburger, vice president of vehicle safety and harmonization for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, said the proposal would require significant changes for some manufacturers while others would have to expand their capability.

The automakers are likely to ask the agency to be definitive about the kind of information it needs for safety research.

"It's got to be more than, 'It would be nice to have this information,' " Strassburger said.

The problematic issues are privacy and disclosure.

GM has responded to these concerns by highlighting the black box in owner's manuals and making related information easier to find. It said it gets the permission of owners or lessees before it downloads information. Courts can order the release of the information, and search warrants can be issued to obtain it.

Though the NHTSA proposal calls for disclosure in every owner's manual, Henry Jasny, general counsel for Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, a consumer group, said there has to be more widespread publicity because few people consult the manual.

 

Note to the original poster. It appears that the California law requires that the vehicles have the EDR technology, not that it has to be disclosed to the consumer. The ACLU is trying to say that the law should be changed to allow notice to consumers, as well as the option to turn off the EDR.


The Wall Street Journal
(Copyright (c) 2004, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)


Wednesday, August 4, 2004


A 'Black Box' for Your Car


---


Safety Board Says All New Vehicles Should Have Devices That Record What Went Wrong in a Crash


By Amy Schatz

THE NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION Safety Board yesterday recommended that black boxes be required in all new cars and trucks. Although many drivers don't realize it, most new cars already come equipped with them. The current generation of devices mostly tells whether an air bag inflated before a crash, but more advanced ones also record a host of other data, including the speed of the car, when the driver started to brake, and whether the headlights and driver's seat belt were on.

Currently, about 30 million passenger cars and trucks on the road have black boxes, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates. As many as 90% of all 2004 model vehicles, including all General Motors Co. and most Ford Motor Co. cars, have some sort of recorder, and an even greater percentage will have them in 2005. They are generally part of the front air-bag system.

However, the data collected from these systems vary widely, and because there's no standard technology for accessing the boxes, crash-scene investigators have had difficulty recovering information that could help them determine why an accident occurred.

In addition, the recommendations are raising concerns among privacy advocates, who say the devices record too much information without the driver's knowledge.

In June, the NHTSA proposed standards for all black boxes, requiring them to record 42 separate pieces of information about the car's performance in the final seconds before an accident by 2008. The standards would also require auto makers to make it easier for crash investigators and researchers to access the information and make auto makers inform consumers the systems are in their vehicles .

The federal auto-safety regulator hasn't mandated that the recorders be installed, saying it isn't necessary because auto makers are putting them in most new cars. However, the NTSB, an independent agency that investigates transportation accidents and makes safety recommendations, disagrees, saying that without a mandate, there can be no guarantee that cars will be equipped with the black boxes.

The black boxes on cars are far less sophisticated than those found on commercial airliners and store much less information. They don't, for example, record audio from inside the car. Nor are they actually boxes, but tiny modules attached to electronic sensors embedded in the car that help trigger air bags. Those sensors can also store information about the vehicle's performance in the seconds before a crash.

Because the technology is relatively new and insurers haven't seen how black boxes affect claims history, they haven't had an impact on auto-insurance rates, according to an Insurance Information Institute spokeswoman.

Privacy advocates and consumer groups worry about who owns the information gathered by the recorders. Although police and safety investigators say the information is helpful in reconstructing accidents, it could also be used against drivers in court by insurance companies or lawyers.

In January, California became the first state to regulate black boxes, requiring all cars made after June 2004 to contain information for drivers on the types of information being recorded by their vehicles. The law was passed because of privacy concerns. The law also says consumers control the release of that information, except in a few situations, such as a court order.

"At a minimum, there ought to be something like the California law that says the owners of vehicles have to be told that the recorders are in their cars and should be able to disable them," says Barry Steinhardt, director of technology for the American Civil Liberties Union.

Ford began installing the systems in 1997 on the Econoline full-size van, although they were originally designed for internal use at Ford, so technicians could monitor the vehicle's performance in a crash . "We just wanted to make sure we recorded some information to make sure our vehicles' systems performed correctly in the event of a crash," said Rick Ruth, a Ford design analyst.

Today, most Ford cars now come equipped with sensors that record information on the vehicle's deceleration and air-bag deployment in a crash.

A few Ford vehicles, including the Lincoln LS, F series pickups, Thunderbird and Explorer, have a more advanced recorder that's part of an electronic throttle system that also stores vehicle speed and braking information for the last five seconds before a crash. In 2005, Ford's Navigator, Expedition, E series vans and Aviator will also have the system.

All General Motors vehicles have had the recorders since 2000, the company says.

The safety board made the recommendation Tuesday during a hearing about a 2003 crash involving an 86-year-old driver who lost control of his car and drove into a farmer's market in Los Angeles, killing 10 people and injuring 63 others. The driver's lawyers refused to allow NTSB investigators to interview him, since there are several lawsuits pending, according to the safety board. If the man's 1992 Buick LeSabre had come equipped with an event data recorder, investigators might have been able to explain why the accident happened, said Joe Osterman, the NTSB's director of highway safety.

 

I asked about our trucks having blac boxes maybe 10 months ago or so.

SAL from PSP and a few others confirmed we DO not have them.

we should worry about the gen3 lightning tho.

obviously we're all gonna break the law sometime in these trucks and if its used AGAINST us in a court fof law I say No way.

 

Interesting…

Select Ford Vehicles Now Supported in Vetronix's New Crash Data Retrieval Software

CDR System

Ford vehicles with CDR systems

No F-150's...


YET...

 

Ive got an 02 and the dealer never mentioned it to me.

 

Hello Big Brother

 

nothing to worry about

 

Nothing to worry about in our trucks. However, I've heard that is a concern for Corvette owners. I am considering a C6 in the near future. Does anyone know if these black boxes can be removed or "patched?" I don't like the idea of Big Brother riding along with me....especially if I'm catching a light with someone...

 

I am searching through this forum to figure out how to disable my black box: Page 6 of my manual explicitly declares there is a black box measuring where passengers are seated, if they are belted in, stearing wheel position, brake and gas pedal position, speed and a number of other things. It goes on to explain that it can be accessed by law enforcement when ordered by the court and by third parties.

So, that being said, I am on a hunt to either disable it or modifiy it. If it can't be disabled I want to be able to read it. I picked up the truck a few days ago, so this is news to me!

 

I have the system removed from my 02 z06 as it is mostly a track car. However, by removing this device it also disabled the airbags and tire pressure sensor system. Im sure the c6 is even more advanced, so in short Im sure its not possible to do on a street driven car as the systems are all interlinked.