Thursday, May 06, 2004

Article: Black box shows car crash data

Today's Globe and Mail has an article about "black boxes" in recent cars that, if I undersand them correctly, record data for the five seconds before tha airbags inflate. Much of the coverage related to them (See Google News Search) has focused on the privacy aspects of these devices.

globemegawheels.com - Black box shows car crash data:

"EDR could be either an eye-glazing acronym or the difference between you and the other driver paying huge sums of money or going to jail. And it's getting lots of attention since a Montreal man was sentenced to 18 months on evidence from his car's event-data recorder.

The revelation of the existence for a decade of the automotive event-data recorder is almost as momentous in traffic-law and civil-court terms as finding DNA was in criminal law.

If your vehicle has airbags, if you have a smart adjuster or lawyer and providing you don't drive like a maniac, proving who is in the wrong can be a lot easier.

But, if you're a little paranoid, certain that there is a Big Brother and that you're the object of his attention, and you drive on the wild side, you could see the EDR as part of a conspiracy to stick it to Canadian drivers."

1 comment:

Unknown said...


Thank you for your insight. I have always wondered how a loose cannon like Mark Latham was made leader and now it is explained, the old payback.
What small minded people, hate makes of us all.
And as for Latham, here was a man who called George W. the worst president ever ( he was right there) and then knocked people over in the stampede to shake his hand.
Obviously a man of no substance which explains his weathervane approach to policies.
However, as a political commentator I find Mark both refreshing and entertaining. A candid breath of fresh air who, because of his perceived ill-treatment by the ALP, is even-handed in his commentary, unlike the hacks like Kroger, Reith and Costello who just read from the prayer book and spout propoganda, thus dismissing their own credibility of argument.