Computer in GA used in accident investigation

[cmoore]

Anyone read November Car and Driver column by Csaba Csere?

Long artice but to summarize, a girl in Florida was backing out of her driveway when her car was hit by a guy in a 2002 GA. She was killed. The guy claimed that he was doing 50 MPH when he hit her. A witness to the accident caused police to check out information contained in the cars' Air Bag Module. Apparently this is a small computer that stores a large amount of information about how the car was being driven at a given point in time. Information from this indicated that the car was doing 114 MPH 5 seconds before the crash and 103 MPH one second before the crash. Seems the guy was not doing 50 after all.

I certainly was not aware that all of this information was stored and available, but I am not supprised. Kind of the 'Big Brother' senario. Glad to see that it was and they caught the guy and charged him.

Article goes on to debate legal issues.

[Molson]

oh ya, there is tons of info that we don't know about stored in there. Last Engine RPMs, last TPS voltage (%) etc.

[naich]

yeah, i think it kind of sucks. I don't want protection at the cost of freedom.

[mshu7]

Originally posted by naich
yeah, i think it kind of sucks. I don't want protection at the cost of freedom.

This doesn't have anything to do with protection vs. freedom, at least not in this case. This device was probably a blessing for the girls family. If a friend or family member of mine was killed like that and speed was a question, I sure as hell would hope this device would be in the car that caused the accident. Otherwise, the person that caused the accident would walk away with a slap on the wrist instead of getting the punishment he/'she deserved.

I don't see why this device should not be used on all vehicles. I'm sure it would help police/crash investigators figure out the cause of some of the "unsolved" car accidents that happen on a daily basis.

People need to be responsible for their actions and in todays society where it seems that most people are dishonest, this device would be a good thing.

[fschambe]

Once you infringe on a person's civil liberties, especially by taking their life, you no longer get freedom. If you have a problem with somebody being able to know how fast you were driving when you killed someone then you should ... I am at a lack of words here so use youe imagination.

[naich]

the problem is not this particular case... not at all. I agree that the person who did cause the accident needs to be punished. However, devices like this should not be installed in cars without explicitly letting the owners know that they are in the cars. The problem I have with it is that it opens a pandoras box. Once you allow this to happen, you can easily justify by the same reasons that all people should be tracked at all times to prove where they were when a crime was committed.

IMO, the investigators would have been able to determine the speed at which the driver hit the girl backing out of her driveway. The crime would have been proven by scientific methods anyway. This just makes it way too easy to apply to other tracking systems.

[Not2OLD]

Originally posted by naich

IMO, the investigators would have been able to determine the speed at which the driver hit the girl backing out of her driveway. The crime would have been proven by scientific methods anyway. This just makes it way too easy to apply to other tracking systems.

This is the crux of the issue. Any accident investigator worth a damn, would be able to tell the difference in 50 mph vs. 100+ mph impact.
This will be used as a test case of the admissability of air bag(?) data.

Stay tuned, it won't be the last case.

who ever said that guys who drive pink aleros don't have powers of deductive reasoning??

[mr_eh]

uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhminah

how about putting them in cars with a severe discount on insurance?

[naich]

who ever said that guys who drive pink aleros don't have powers of deductive reasoning??

hey, i saw that! It's red damnit!

[fschambe]

The insurance issue (re: discount for having data logger) would probably be overturned because most likely it would be used to eliminate the defendent's defence and show more liability there. So, it would almost seem like you should get the discount for everyone else having it, so if everyone's got the same thing then why give a discount?

As far as 'privacy' issues, the data logged on the Air Bag computer is not as complex as some think, it's simply a few frames of data before deployment that was still in the buffer, data which is stored simply to find out WHY the air bag went off, which is mainly for problems like deployment without an apparent cause to make diagnosing simpler. BTW it has to be accessed I think through the TECH-II or maybe even a more expensive diagnostic tool, and it is not easy to snoop or eavsdrop.

[Dr_Kyle]

It was probably suspected before they got the computer info. An experienced traffic officer can usually estimate a speed of a crash based tire skid marks and they're patterns and thickness. Also, damage to the vehicles in question (BIG difference between 103 and 50) would be enough to warrant further investigation.

This is like a phone tap for cars... If cops suspect somebody is selling drugs, they can obtain a phone tap or surveillance to gather evidence... So long as proper procedure is followed.

As long as this isn't used as a primary investigation tool, I don't see a reason for it to be inadmissable or a violation of anything.

[Slim]

It's pretty simple actually.... Don't drive like an ass and it won't matter if there's a little black box recording things.

[Molson]

Originally posted by Slim25
It's pretty simple actually.... Don't drive like an ass and it won't matter if there's a little black box recording things.

my thoughts exactly. I have nothing to hide. Follow me.

Originally posted by Slim25
It's pretty simple actually.... Don't drive like an ass and it won't matter if there's a little black box recording things.

I couldnt agree more.
Now lets turn it around:
Lets say your driving and the car just freaks out and you hit and kill somebody. You tell the cops the car just freaked out and they basically laugh at you and charge you with vehicular homicide. Its your word against the experts, except for that little black box that says the car really did freak out. In this case would you want the black box?

[Molson]

Originally posted by 2Dambad
I couldnt agree more.
Now lets turn it around:
Lets say your driving and the car just freaks out and you hit and kill somebody. You tell the cops the car just freaked out and they basically laugh at you and charge you with vehicular homicide. Its your word against the experts, except for that little black box that says the car really did freak out. In this case would you want the black box?

Never heard of a car freaking out, but yeah.

[kubiache]

My car freaks out every time I'm at a stop light next to a Civic, it just insists on gunning it...craziest thing.

[tyger25]

I heard of this on a TA. The computer showed that the car was at 119mph, and 98% throttle at time of impact. This killed 2 teenage girls, and the guy recieved 70+ years.

[Spoon]

Originally posted by naich
the problem is not this particular case... not at all. I agree that the person who did cause the accident needs to be punished. However, devices like this should not be installed in cars without explicitly letting the owners know that they are in the cars. The problem I have with it is that it opens a pandoras box. Once you allow this to happen, you can easily justify by the same reasons that all people should be tracked at all times to prove where they were when a crime was committed.

IMO, the investigators would have been able to determine the speed at which the driver hit the girl backing out of her driveway. The crime would have been proven by scientific methods anyway. This just makes it way too easy to apply to other tracking systems.

Hope you don't have a cell phone! If you do, quick turn it off. BIG BROTHERS watcing!

We had a presentation in our HS physics class by a state trafic investigator involvoing a 2000 grand am and a guy pullingout onto the road. They showed us how they did all the calculations to determine the vehicles speed which turned out to be 53 in a 25, then they got a search warrant for the air bag computer pulled the data and it said 54 at time of impact. She then was convicted of vehicular manslaughter plus she blew a .21.

[Mike3800]

Originally posted by tyger25
I heard of this on a TA. The computer showed that the car was at 119mph, and 98% throttle at time of impact. This killed 2 teenage girls, and the guy recieved 70+ years.

Complete lack of respect for other people's lives. I am disgusted.


Normally I am against "monitoring" types of devices specifically SPEED CAMERAS, however a "black box" in a car isn't such a bad idea, it's not as if they can monitor you while you are driving or anything invasive like that. I think it's a good idea.

Speed limiters do virtually nothing since any idiot can drive irresponsibly at any speed with bald tires etc... however this device (black box) seems to be very useful.

The engineers who designed the car actually helped bring a person to justice, that's far beyond just making a car get from point A to point B safley so again to GM.

That's still a shame that the children died like that.