Black Box

all modern fuel injected cars have them. what question do you want answered?

I thought this device is installed on all makes and models in North America today.

I am pretty upset about this device in my car also.

Why would the presence of this unit be upsetting to you? If you are involved in a collision, it has the power to remove all doubt about what your vehicle was doing prior to the collision. An onboard witness that can't be bought is a good thing.

Brian

I am undecided its good or bad. First off, I want to know if the car has on it. Second, where it is and what interface does it have etc ? What data does it store day ti day ? If all EDRs are good, why don't they advertise it as one more thing your call has.

For now, I want to conclude via some website my car has it or not... All American cars do but not sure about all imports ?

My understanding is that it does not store data beyond a sliding window of several seconds. The data is kept in a circular buffer (it continuously overwrites the oldest data) which stops updating a moment after air bag deployment.

They are the result of claims regarding wrongful deployment of air bags, and I believe they are usually integral with the air bag controller. The interface is proprietary. False air bag deployment is so dangerous that it needed to be documented whether the conditions warranted deployment, or if not, what could have caused the bag to deploy.

Since air bags are mandatory, I think it's safe to assume every car made today and in recent years has one.

Mike

As long as the data in it is 100% accurate. There is a culture in most western nations to believe implicitly 'technological data' recorded in consumer machines. Everything from data recorders, to the number logs on fax machines (for instance, obviously the 'from' number can be easy to falsify, but the 'to' can be harder'

"Brian Smith" wrote in news:NK_Ve.245013$tt5.178412@edtnps90:

Because it's more likely to be used against you than to aid you. The laws regarding access to the data are not well-established yet.either. (privacy issues)

I drive tractor trailer for a living. Our trucks have company installed onboard recorders. They record every thing the truck does through the run, engine speed, road speed, distance travelled, overspeed of the engine the time of day that every happens, the number of stops and where we stopped and for how long. While some people say this is an infringement on their personal privacy, I look at it as being the same as driving with the boss or a police officer in the cab with me. If they were there, they would see the same things, but not as accurately as the computer recorder does and if a person calls the company and says that I was speeding along a stretch of road at a certain time, it can verify that it was or wasn't me. The same thing applies if the truck was involved in a collision.

Brian

Yeah, such tachographs are required by law in much of europe, and in the UK, a police officer can equest to see your tachographs for the previous (I think don't know) 24 hours

I tend to agree with Jim much of time, but on this I agree with Brian. I drive a school bus with a tach, and I frive right. If there's ever a question as to whether I was speeding (or even driving) at given time, I'm covered. I fail to see how a black box could be used to your disadvantage if you drive within legal limits. Of course, if you routinely break the law, you have three potential problems: Cops, the blackbox, and an accident. (Incidentally, my training says for every 300 violations, there are 29 accidents, and 1 fatality.)

jim beam wrote in news:oYidnS8k_OLrB7reRVn- snipped-for-privacy@speakeasy.net:

Actually, it's a fairly modern thing, and quite separate from the ECM that all EFI cars have.

This particular black box keeps track of things like: Maximum speeds the car's operated at; Maximum RPM the engine was operated at; Maximum g-loading in corners or upon impact, and the direction of that loading; Whether seat belts are being worn; Etc.

The tattle-boxes can do this in real-time, too.

Much of the impetus for these things is liability legislation, which exposes manufacturers to considerable risk of huge punitive awards.

It also comes in handy for warranty claims, too. If you blow your engine because you missed a shift into 5th at 84 mph, the black box will record the rpm as 9,500 at the moment of destruction, and your warranty claim will be denied on account of abuse. Absent the black box, they would have no way of knowing for sure how fast the motor was turning, and would probably have honored the claim.

This last anecdote actually happened to very recently to Toyota, with an owner's new Celica.

at David's very first message on Aug12, then scroll down to the first message from Philip on Aug13. Frankly, I don't like the data recorders either. But there's really nobody to blame for them except the goverment and legal activists.

We used to use tachographs here too. These are easier to use and harder to fool, the tachographs could be fooled by inserting the graph paper in backwards or putting a slight bend in the writing tip. The computer can't be read at the side of the road, it has to be downloaded at our Distribution Centre.

Brian

It would be difficult to use it against you, if you were operating your vehicle within the laws of the road and with due care for the weather and traffic conditions.

Brian

"Brian Smith" wrote in news:xLdWe.231813$9A2.115119@edtnps89:

I speed;so what? I do it where it's prudent,and police and politicians speed,too,A lot faster than I do. Politicians alone have harmed more people driving than I have.

I believe we do not need more "Big Brother" monitoring devices.

IMO,police could(and should) toss out their radar and laser guns,and concentrate on violations that really make a difference in driving safety,like RLrunning,reckless driving,improper lane changes,KRETP and STKR.

But they "enforce" where the easy money is,and where it has little effect on traffic safety.

Okay, what ever you think.

I have no problems with it for commercial drivers. You are doing a job and these are essentially business records which reduce the liability of the business. However, for personal transportation use, I believe that this type of monitoring (or more importantly in the long run how the data is used) is unreasonable. Yes, I drive an older car from before OBD3 which, if I remember correctly, was the first to have the flight data recorder functionality and I'll also keep my car running for as long as possible.

Eric

If you speed, you have no legitimate beef with monitoring devices. They simply hold you accountable for what you do.

Personally, I stopped speeding decades ago. I did some simple calculations and decided it was a fool's game. Since then, I have only sped on one occasion. On a pair of 12 hour legs of a long trip we fudged the speed limit by 3-5 mph. It made about a half hour difference when we needed it most. Stretching that to 10 mph would have exposed us to more liability than the time gain would have justified - we were already going to arrive before sundown.

Mike

Speeding doesn't save enough time to justify doing it, compared to the losses that it may force a person to endure for the rest of their life.

Brian

"Michael Pardee" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@sedona.net:

They do nothing for SAFETY. In fact,they make it worse. All they are good for is raising revenue for the states and police departments,and even increasing employment in some PDs.(Ohio for one.)

If it were not for speeding,we still would have the 55MPH NMSL. People voted with their right feet.