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07/14/2003 Archived Entry: "Drive carefully!"
Drive carefully!
I was astounded when I read this. They're doing this pretty much without telling anyone about it, and they are making no provisions for privacy.
No one disputes that Michelle Zimmermann lost control of her 2002 GMC Yukon on a two-lane highway in Massachusetts one snowy afternoon last January. Her friend died after the SUV slammed into a tree.Zimmermann claims she was driving within the 40 mph speed limit, but like millions of other Americans the 33-year-old didn't know that her vehicle had a "black box." It recorded the last few seconds before the crash.
Bolstered by data that they say indicates Zimmermann was driving well above the speed limit, prosecutors have charged the Beverly, Mass., woman with negligent vehicular homicide. She has pleaded innocent and faces up to 2-1/2 years in jail if convicted.
An estimated 25 million automobiles in the United States--almost every newer GM car--now have so-called event data recorders, a scaled-down version of the devices that monitor cockpit activity in airplanes. What the devices record increasingly finds its way into courtrooms, leading some privacy advocates to question how the recorders came to be installed so widely with so little public notice.
"It's like having a government agent driving around in the back seat of your car," said Bob Weiner, Zimmermann's defense attorney and a former prosecutor....
Attorney Clifford dismisses the privacy concerns because driving --and crashes--are public.
"The privacy issues are frivolous because there cannot be any reasonable expectation of privacy in how fast you are going because other people can observe you on the road," he said. "The privacy claim is just an excuse for keeping people from knowing the truth."
Replies: 5 people speak up
Hey Don!
Do you have a link to this story? I would really like to send it to a few automotive types around here, and see if they know that this is going on, and conveniently forgot to inform us public-type customers and all.
Would this be considered to be some sort of fraud? I always wondered about GM bundling the OnStar coverage with their vehicles. Maybe there's a GPS locator in our cars as well as a black box?
Posted by (: Tom :) @ 07/14/2003 09:18 AM NY
On the one hand, having these stripped-down versions of black boxes installed in vehicles seems like sound public safety policy. However, owners of those vehicles should be aware of their existence. In any event, I wouldn't lose any sleep over this issue.
Posted by Metropolitan99 @ 07/14/2003 09:18 AM NY
Not only will I be losing some sleep here, I will also never buy another Big Three auto (even used) again! I was wondering about this sort of thing, and I don't want to have anything to do with something like this.
I would like to see some more details, but
(i) if this device has sound and/or video recording capabilities, and I went parking with my girlfriend, or did anything else that 'some people' would consider immoral, whoever harvests this thing can see that, and possibly use it against me!
(ii) I just had to spend $100 to install a new battery in my car. It died unbelievably fast, and my 2000 Chevy Impala needs an extra strong battery. If I have had to replace it ahead of time because, oh, I don't know, some unknown surveillance equipment drained it faster than normal - then I'm paying extra for this without my knowledge or consent.
Two examples of things that I need to worry about. I'll try not to lose any sleep over it. But, I'll also start looking for somebody who can pull that freaking thing out of my car...
Posted by (: Tom :) @ 07/14/2003 01:12 PM NY
Tom,
I’m not sure about the technical specs of these so-called black boxes and I don’t pretend to be familiar with their capabilities. However, I seriously doubt that they have the capacity to record voices or register pheromone levels.
While I don’t believe the black boxes are any more intrusive than lo-jacks, I would agree that the buyer should be informed that the device is in the vehicle prior to purchase. The buyer should also be able to opt-out and purchase the vehicle without the device.
In any event, if you make enough dough to buy a new car, more power to ya. In the meanwhile, I’ll continue to drive my ten-year old, 4-cylinder Pontiac as little as possible.
Posted by Metropolitan99 @ 07/14/2003 06:17 PM NY
I used to work for GM, and dealt with these 'black boxes' on a regular basis while dealing with customers who alleged that their vehicles "caused" them to have accidents.
Basically, they're there as a computer for the airbag sensors in your vehicle's engine and passenger compartments. They take a number of factors into consideration... speed, angle/direction of impact, and the force of the impact (i.e. how long it took to get from 50mph to 45mph to 30mph, so far/so forth). All this data comes together to determine whether or not the airbag should be deployed.
When I worked for GM, we used them to determine if our customers had legitimate complaints. They'd get into a front-end wreck, their airbag wouldn't deploy, and they'd complain or think their airbag was faulty. We'd use the information in the box to tell whether or not the person was going fast enough or hit at the right angle to cause deployment.
Fear not, they don't record audio or anything other than the data they use.
Posted by blunted @ 07/15/2003 12:18 PM NY
