Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
Modern cars have computers that act like a Black Box data recorder and the data can be used as evidence against you in court. The Minnesota Court of Appeals recently upheld the conviction of a woman charged with Reckless Driving, based on data the State Patrol downloaded from the computer inside her wrecked car after the accident.
I’m seeing a market for a Black Box Eraser device. Involved in an accident? Afraid it might be your fault? Push a button and ZAP, the Black Box memory is wiped and can’t be used against you. Order before midnight tonight. Don’t leave home without it.
Joe Doakes
I bet Alice Hausman reads this and submits a bill regulating such devices in the Transportation Committee before the next session.
usually they get you because you say something unequivocal like “I was only going 30 mph and I hit the brakes immediately” when the box has you at 45 with the brakes unengaged. Then they’ve got you in a lie. Its better to say, at the scene of the accident until court appearance, something like “I’m not sure. It all happened so fast, I don’t remember clearly, I couldn’t even hazard a guess”.
“Order before midnight tonight.”
And, if you call within the next ten minutes, we’ll DOUBLE THE OFFER and give you a second one free! Just pay shipping and handling.”
so… where do I get one?
BUT WAIT!…There’s more!
The ‘eraser’ only works if the data is kept on the vehicle and it is not copied elsewhere.
so… where do I get this “eraser”. And anyone know how to determine if my car has a black box?
JPA
if your car has airbags it has a black box – its part of the airbag system or was originally and only captured data for the 5 seconds prior to impact/airbag deployment. Now some cars (Nissan for instance) have a separate black box system that captures data for the last 36 hrs (that way when you show up at the dealership with a busted tranny on your brand new 370Z NISMO they can figure out what you were up to prior to smoking your drive train).
Thanks kel. I can live with 5sec’s prior… It is history that I am paranoid about.
If the data are available, they will be used. My wife used to work in a call center for Oldsmobile, and she once had to refuse to cover new brakes for one irate owner because when she called the dealer, a mechanic came on and noted that he lived in the same town as the irate person, and watched that person riding their brakes all the way down the mountain every morning. (owner was in Colorado)
Probably didn’t get repeat business for Oldsmobile that way, but new brakes every so often would have eaten up the profits anyways. Hopefully the car was replaced with a Honda–my boss tells me that Hondas are renowned for short brake pad life for whatever reason.
And if one figures out how to disable the recorder….oh, that’ll be interesting, because it would more or less mean they were worthless. Very interesting.
Since there will be all sorts of things tied to the recorded data (ability to prove driving that invalidates warranty, ability to prove illegal driving activity, etc), I’m sure the automakers will make it extremely difficult to disable, and the government will eventually try to pass laws making it illegal to modify/delete recorded data. Which will then be taken to SCOTUS for 1A issues. I don’t keep up with the bleeding edge tech of the auto insdustry, but I would think they have to have some safeguards built in so that some hacker can’t throw on a modified OBD-II scanner (or hell, in new cars, a wifi or bluetooth signal) and start messing with the parameters and data in the ECU.
Bill C
once the Ins industry figured out what a gold mine the data recorders were it didn’t take long for the mfgrs to add security, so on newer models you need a security code to access the data and another code to erase it. These codes and the equip needed for access are only provided to dealerships, ins cos, law enforcement and vetted “outside consultants ( law firms)” – from what I’ve been able to dig up the access codes are hashs of the vin numbers ( plus something else probably the code that identifies the authorized user) that are generated by the specialized reader equipment – they can be hacked but you will need a sniffer plugged into the OBD II port and a fairly broad array of makes and models for test samples.
but as you suggest once you reverse engineer the reader software a bluetooth OBD II plug and a smartphone with an Android OS will do the trick.