I assume the black box information would not be protected because in the OP it was stated that this information was to be used to set insurance rates. That statement, I guess leading since I trusted Oldschool’s statement, would make me beleive that this information was to be used regardless.
I would also assume such information would not be protected because of the greater good. As has been stated earlier, driving is a privalege, public roads are public, and driving a car on those roads does not offer any kind of privacy protection. To me, you give up some freedoms to receive privleges and if you are in an accident, and this information is required, your right to pressumed privacy will be infringed for the greater good.
I am not sure where I stated that you would or are not being reasonable. I was just stating my thoughts on the subject. I know from reading your previous posts that you are an intelligent person, who is usually very well spoken(written).
The last paragraph of this story (from this months “Motor Magazine” “Time will tell how willing your customers will be to let you install yet another application on their smart phone or a monitoring device in their vehicle. Customer demand will be driven by several factors, including the unobtrusiveness, expense and tanagible benifit to the user and, perhaps most importantly, the sensitivity given to privacy issues.”
Earlier in the article the author states “I don’t know how comfortable I’d be taking my insurance company, the manufacture of my vehicle, the Illinois Tollway AND the Federal Government with me everywhere I go.”
At what point do we refuse to have our private lives invaded by data collectors?
I think most people are so consistent in their behavior that data collectors really wouldn’t give that much more information if chips were implanted in people. On the television police series NYPD Blues, Detective Sipowitz was instructing his son on what it takes to be a good street cop. He made Andy junior think about 4 things: People; Places; The things they do; The times they do them. When I thought about this, I realized that people really have very consistent patterns in their lives. We have a campus policeman at my institution that was able to solve a series of church arson crimes that spread across a several state area. He had heard a report on the police radio that a person was in the emergency room for treatent of burns that had occured several days earlier. He wondered why the person didn’t seek immediate medical attention. The policeman followed up and with some good investiagive work broke the case that federal agents couldn’t solve. I don’t think an event recorder could have fingered the arsonist.
I’m not certain that event recorders in automobiles would spool out enough reliable data tht could be retrieved to really be of much use.
Irrelevant! That might apply to, say, watching a bunch of people drive through a flooded road and deciding it's fine. Driving with the flow of traffic? That is just common sense. If you were going 65MPH, crest a hill and there's some guy going like 40MPH, you know that's not safe. You are advocating doing EXACTLY the same thing.
I'm sure Australian boondocks have LOADS of traffic. Seriously, yes, if there's like 3 cars on the road, they should be able to avoid accidents no matter what speeds they are going, and in lighter traffic in general there's not any serious repercussions to someone going as slow as they wish. That is not the reality here in the states, roads are heavily trafficed. Based on both computer models and observation, it's been found someone driving slower like you advocate causes waves of traffic jams behind -- not going your speed, but going much much slower -- for miles behind. There's really no "reacting to traffic patterns before they become a problem" when someone like you causes a rolling traffic jam and traffic for seemingly no reasons slows from 75 to like 35MPH -- obviously everyone should react and not rear end each other, and usually they do, but it's far more dangerous than if the traffic just keeps flowing. This also causes 2 lanes of traffic to try to cram into one lane to get past the slow car, which also tends to be a bit unsafe, since cars in the lane and ones trying to get in are basically vying for the same position (ideally, people'd be polite and let each other in but they aren't.)
“Wish they would do this on school buses,so they could have full power on mtn grades,then cut back to standard power on the flat road-Kevin(I believe it could be done)”
??? What ever for? Every bus I’ve been in, they’ve got to mash the pedal down just for the thing to move, and they’ll barely make highway speed. “Standard” power is full power.
This thread has meandered over a number of important issues, and I think that’s good. One that needs to be addressed is the private sector use of event data recorders for civil monetary purposes.
There was a lengthy article recently about the use of these recorders by rental car companies. They were putting into contracts in fine print a hefty penalty fee for driving the rental over the border. One businessman rented a car from a national chain just over the border from a company he was working with. He was staying at a hotel. Unbeknownst to him, every time he crossed the state line an “event” was recorded and a penalty fee automatically imposed. At the end of the week, even though he’d put very few miles on the car, his bill was thousands of dollars. He sued. According to the article, his was not the only such lawsuit. California and New York have now passed laws prohibiting this practice by rental car companies.
The article also talked about automotive event recorder data bsing used in divorce courts. The drivers of the cars in the cases described did not even know their vehicles had these black boxes.
There’s also an issue of retroactive use. If a law is passed imposing a fee, should the government be able to assess people for prior offenses based on event recorders? Contrary to popular belief, not all statutes contain “grandfather clauses”. NH earlier this year passed a law (now in disute) adding tax burdens to LLCs for the 2009 tax year, which effectively makes the law retroactive.
Regarding government authorities, I have concerns about allowing too much data collection. If I buy a car, I don’t want to have the government collecting data totally against my will and probably even unbeknownst to me. AFTER I commit an infraction, then I agree that they have the right to collect data to investiate, but I cannot agree that they have the right to track me IN CASE I commit an infraction.
I just want too make it clear that the increase in event time recorded (from 15 too 60 seconds) is part of the 2010 Safety Act but the installation of equipment to gather data too increase sales and explore new areas of profit are ideas presented by business.
Telemetrics won’t work, who is going to pay? Easy to kill. I already want a computer fry switch. A switch to kill the memory in the computer.
Also I have a right to my property so why not just remove the computer prior to leaving the scene? They really can’t tell you not to. They need a court order to inspect the property since it is not a direct threat to life and limb they cannot just confiscate something you can carry away. The evidence value is not of any importance in court anyway. And it is your property. The data on your property must be acquired by a legal order showing the reason why it must be acquired. This is not a default right of the investigators. The majority of vehicle accident evidence is actual physics and not disputable. The computer has very little info to add to the physical evidence.
The insurers can actually be prohibited from the data on the computer. They must show cause even if you only dispute the settlement amount. Operating your vehicle at a provable speed in excess of the limit is not a deniable claim at this point unless you are an incapacitated driver. Remember the general liability on a vehicle for injury to others carries very few limits on cause.
I am no legal expert, but I would imagine that an accident could be considered a crime scene and tampering with the box, such as frying or removing it, could be considered tampering with a crime scene.
I would also imagine that such telemetrics could be used to determine who is at fault, which could effect who gets charged what in regards to insurance depending on where you live.
I agree with the statement that physics are physics and accident reproduction is pretty cool in what they can do.