Black Box for Automobiles

[rangaraj]

With more and more electronics and sensors getting into cars these days, it would be great if we can have a "black Box" - equivalent of what is available in aircrafts in automobiles. If there are accidents, one could do a quick analysis and check the cause of the accident - was it brake failure or the driver not applying brakes etc.. Quite a boon for India where the number of road accidents are high. Insurance agencies would love to get their hands on this kind of data..

Makes sense? When do you think this would become a reality??? Thoughts?

[yeis]

Yes, it seems a good to have thing. But as of now India needs accident-prevention systems not analysis ones. Safety features like ABS and Airbags are yet to be appreciated in right proportion in India. What you are talking about is very far, well at least a decade for mid-segmenters. Maybe some super-luxury/luxury cars will be (or do they have these today too?) equipped with these systems in near future.

We are living in India where people cosider safety as last option! FE, maintenance, resale, space and comfort are essentials. If safety is good its better if not no problem. "Brake to honge hi na?..."

[artofzen]

I would be one of the happiest member if it happens since I work in that domain for airlines.But black box is actually the last step in safety .Before that atleast Airbags should be made standard for all cars.

[GTO]

Mercedes cars already have something similar, and I was surprised at the amount of detail they record.

In my previous C180 petrol, the engine at misfired on the expressway. The service chap connected an IBM laptop to the car, and data about speed/gear/rpm etc. at the time of the misfiring incident was available to him

[ballkey]

These things are already here - they are called Event data recorders. It seems most GM cars have one, and they are already ubiquitous enough to cause privacy concerns.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/AUTOS/08/21/...ule/index.html

Since they're tough to disable, the concern is that they might be used in a court of law to prove you were doing unsafe speeds etc.

[sharathjeppu]

What about something like this.

http://www.davisnet.com/drive/produc...p_products.asp

Sharath

[raptor3624]

Blackbox??? visit www.Mobiapps.com.
It's products are GPS based devices which give the location of a vehicle run-time(not like the GPS navigations based in the high-end cars).
It also has a blackbox feature which helps a lot during any accident.

[tsk1979]

Very bad idea. A serious breach or privacy too. They measure steering input etc,. too. Suppose you have to swerve and overspeed to avoid a big truck, the data recorder will record it all, and then the insurance company can claim you were doing overspeeding and driving all over(Most black boxed record data upto a few seconds before the airbags deploy).

[theMAG]

Good idea. Black boxes in cars. Only, should they be colored orange as in the original black boxes ?!

I just see the day when an M800 20 years from now gives scientific evidence as to why none of its recipients survived the accident - to bolster what is visually acknowledged today itself

[rangaraj]

Originally Posted by tsk1979

Very bad idea. A serious breach or privacy too. They measure steering input etc,. too. Suppose you have to swerve and overspeed to avoid a big truck, the data recorder will record it all, and then the insurance company can claim you were doing overspeeding and driving all over(Most black boxed record data upto a few seconds before the airbags deploy).

I had raised another thread about the sudden loss of steering control and the Honda service guys did a dump and saw the glitch, but did not part with the data.. So here is the question..

It is your car, so is the data yours???? The access to this seems to be available only to the authorized service guys - i guess they do need access (such as Mercedes service centers to tune/figure out what is wrong with the car). But they do not allow that data to be available to you!

If you relate this to the medical records - the HIPPA standards allow the access to be controlled by YOU and you make this available to people concerened for a period of time, but otherwise it is confidential. Should not the same priciple apply here as well????

[yeis]

Originally Posted by rangaraj

It is your car, so is the data yours???? The access to this seems to be available only to the authorized service guys - i guess they do need access (such as Mercedes service centers to tune/figure out what is wrong with the car). But they do not allow that data to be available to you!

As far as data's access is concered it must be written in the manual. The inventing companies must have patents and a few hundred-pages long reports who can access it and who cannot. And they would have justified it why can't they show it to you.

IMHO, I don't find it as useful as it sounds. It will certainly help car company to analyze and rectify the cause of accidents which in turn will help others from further similar accident. But its sure that the guy having it in his car won't be benefitted. In a sense, what is the use of postmortem?

[rangaraj]

Originally Posted by yeis

As far as data's access is concered it must be written in the manual. The inventing companies must have patents and a few hundred-pages long reports who can access it and who cannot. And they would have justified it why can't they show it to you.

It still does not answer the in-principle question - should it be accessible only to the car manufacturer as it is today! If we do not have a law that mandates this now, it becomes increasingly difficult as the magnum of this data and proprietary nature of the collection increases.

Originally Posted by yeis

IMHO, I don't find it as useful as it sounds. It will certainly help car company to analyze and rectify the cause of accidents which in turn will help others from further similar accident. But its sure that the guy having it in his car won't be benefitted. In a sense, what is the use of postmortem?

That is because you are looking at today's technology.. But network enable this device (with wireless) and you get what F1 cars and rockets/satellites have today! Imagine a service provider (analogy - the technical director etc. of a F1 team having real-time statistics) and letting you how to prevent a disaster (not from an accident, but brake pads worn off, or loss in hydralic pressure etc. You do have some annoying feedback in mechanical tones of cars talking to you, but take it one step further and you could see how to make our vehicles safer, and of course us..

This is >10 years from now, as we still need enforcement of laws in India that mandate rear brake lights to work - forget airbags etc..

[yeis]

Originally Posted by rangaraj

It still does not answer the in-principle question - should it be accessible only to the car manufacturer as it is today! If we do not have a law that mandates this now, it becomes increasingly difficult as the magnum of this data and proprietary nature of the collection increases.

Its a grey area, not many know who actually can access it. But if its stored exclusively for manfacturers then at least problem raised by tsk can be solved. No insurance agency will fool you around. Now if we consider your point of talking of cars, telling car's maintenance status and all, car owner too will need it. However it would be of no use until manufacturer itself provides an interface to analyze and convert it to human understandable format. Apart from luxury cars, no manufacturer will even think of considering this kind of tool until next decade.

[rangaraj]

Is your car spying on you?

By Robert Vamosi
Senior editor, CNET Reviews
May 4, 2007


On April 12, 2007, New Jersey Governor Jon S. Corzine was seriously injured in a crash on the Garden State Parkway. In the days following, witnesses, including a state patrol officer assigned to ride with the governor, gave varying accounts, most estimating the governor's SUV traveling at a speed of more than 70mph. Now it seems that the vehicle had been traveling at 91mph in the final seconds before the crash, and, moreover, the governor, seated in the front passenger seat, was not wearing his seatbelt. How do we know this? Because the Chevy Suburban used in his motorcade contained a black box. A lucky fluke? Turns out most domestic cars sold within the last few years all contain them as well. Who knew?

Read rest of the article here Security Watch: Is your car spying on you? - CNET reviews

[moralfibre]

An Indian company into similar business is:

Micro Technologies (India) Ltd.