breds2k

iTrader: (1)

Just saw on the news a very sad story about two young parents that were killed this morning when their cobalt couple struck a telephone pole. Both were not wearing seatbelts. I cannot find a video on line that said what the live news said, but channel 5 said, authorities have recovered the black box from the vehicle and hopefully this will lead to some answers as to how the crash happened.


Black box? Whats the deal?

G5GT2007

Yeah our cars have them. From what i hear they keep track of speed and how fast we hit the brakes or how fast the car has stopped.

BlueStang

They are in just abouit every new car, it knows all and tells all

Cobra2255

That sucks major

riceburner

iTrader: (66)

Whaat i had no idea about that! Id love to see what my black box says

0-60.... Top out 120... 70% braking force... 1.2g turn

z062007vette

iTrader: (4)

Might be part of the OnStar system, but could be wrong though based on BlueStang comment.

emiller

Pretty much every vehicle has one and has had one for a long time.

Basically it records vehicle info like speed, pedal positions, steering position, etc in a loop.

DC02

The ECU takes a snapshot (has for years) of multiple sensor readings at a moment of impact. Insurance companies use 'em like crazy. The black box thing I believe is just another layer of that which will probably be standard on all cars in a few years

Aleksey

iTrader: (6)

New to me and I see car accidents all the time.

gotboost?17

iTrader: (46)

its just like a dealer can tell if u have a tune, or how high u reved it till she blews for a example, they can c everything, its 2012

cranemaster

My 2005 civic had a black box... THE FUTURE IS NOW...!!

LS6Rally

iTrader: (14)

theyve been around since the early nineties, like before Cobe was born

LS6Rally

iTrader: (14)

here you go. GM since 1994
http://blogs.computerworld.com/20109...t_you_in_court

Cobalt_Daddy

hahaha

i always wondered if a dealership could check your cars ECU to see if you've been driving the car hard and see a snapshot of what was going on when a CEL or something pops up.

Vegas

probably shut off your car in a high speed chase too. I'm sure its useful but I'm not a big fan of big brother watching my every move.

Cobalt_Daddy

Onstar can do that which is one of many reasons why i had it disabled.

ted5986

your airbag module also has the ability to store you speed at impack, bracking force etc...but its not something you stick a scanner on and, bam they have all your info

Haven07

I don't think you can really have it disabled unless you physically remove it from your car...

BlueStang

Just another way for big brother to know what your doing when out driving your car

Who Gee

so true

dieGone

iTrader: (2)

If you guys heard of the insurance company Progressive and their "snapshot" device. That might be just another "blackbox" you put in your car and it tracks all your moves and sends them to your insurance company (for 6 months). That's why they give 30% discount on your policy (or not) depending on how you drive.

BlueStang

It's sad what happened, but why do some people still do not wear their seat belt.

Stamina

Pull Onstar fuse. /Onstar

There are more... assured ways of disabling it, but that's the easiest. The downside is that the bluetooth is a part of the Onstar module on '09+ cars, so you'll lose that. On some of the cars, the same fuse is also on the XM Radio circuit too, so it'll disable that too if you pull the fuse. So if you don't have/want both the XM and bluetooth, then just pulling the fuse is the easiest method.

^this

It records it in a <30 second loop and when the car hits something and/or airbags deploy then the last information that's naturally available on the loop is also the information leading up to the crash.

It's right in the Owners Manual. They call it the Event Data Recorder ("EDR"). It's on page 7-17 in my manual.

It says right there in the manual that it monitors:

blackbird

It's nothing new and varying amounts of data have been recorded since air bags first started appearing in increasing number of models before they became mandatory. Early air bag control modules were pretty primitive and would record very basic data like vehicle speed, seatbelt usage, and vehicle deceleration for just a few seconds before a collision triggering air bag deployment. Newer vehicles have much greater sensor and data available to the computer and newer controllers have a much longer recording loop and can include data like if the brakes were applied, vehicle speed, lateral and yaw rates, steering angle, seatbelt and occupant sensor data, etc.

Some may view it as "big brother" but what if you or your family got hit and there was data that could prove the other party was at fault? It's not like law enforcement can just pull the data from a car either, and in most cases they have to obtain a search warrant. There are also other benefits the technology can provide like providing valuable real-world crash data automakers can use to improve safety of vehicles.

I can understand the concern about who has access to this data but until the NHTSA implements uniform standards someone needs specialized and expensive scan tools to read this data. Witness the unintended acceleration claims of Toyota models recently where Toyota had to access the data as it wasn't available for third-parties to try to find out what went on. If you're worried about this then don't buy a new car. I'd rather have some personal accountability and know that if I'm not doing anything wrong I have nothing to worry about, and if I do ever make a mistake and am responsible for an accident that's why I carry insurance with high limits to make sure everyone is covered.

blueLNFftw

iTrader: (16)

They increased mine

lol.
I kid.

they would have, but I put it in my other car and barely drove it.