Black Boxes in Cars - for your safety, of course

[Soul Crusher]

That is a concern, but it's not unique to this situation.

I don't want the government mandating what cars must and must not have, although I do think that some some degree of regulation is sensible; the government can set rules on the vehicles that operate on its roads. With that said, I don't think that should give the government a blank check to regulate vehicle design.

But to be clear, you don't have a problem with a voluntary system where insurance companies offer incentives to customers with such black boxes in their vehicles?

Voluntary no.   But lets get real - we all know where this is going eventually. 

[avxo]

Voluntary no.   But lets get real - we all know where this is going eventually.

That's a fair point. But this is one of those corner cases where I could argue things either way with almost equal effectiveness. Whenever I come across one of these I tend to err on the side of caution and stick with "No. The Government shouldn't muck with this" but to be honest, I don't see this case as a huge issue if proper safeguards for the data were put into effect and it was made explicit that (a) the data belongs to the owner of the vehicle and (b) consent is required for accessing it (absent a warrant to be issued only on probable cause).

Keep in mind that most newish cars have such "black boxes" already, although they currently "trigger" only when the car is involved in an accident and record data for only a few short seconds. Car companies supposedly use the data to improve the airbag deployment algorithms and other car safety systems.

I'll tell you that if the right safeguards are there (and it's possible to implement such safeguards) I can deal with that.

Your mileage may vary.

[Soul Crusher]

That's a fair point. But this is one of those corner cases where I could argue things either way with almost equal effectiveness. Whenever I come across one of these I tend to err on the side of caution and stick with "No. The Government shouldn't muck with this" but to be honest, I don't see this case as a huge issue if proper safeguards for the data were put into effect and it was made explicit that (a) the data belongs to the owner of the vehicle and (b) consent is required for accessing it (absent a warrant to be issued only on probable cause).

Keep in mind that most newish cars have such "black boxes" already, although they currently only "trigger" only when the car is involved in an accident and record data for only a few short seconds. Car companies supposedly use the data to improve the airbag deployment algorithms and other car safety systems.

I'll tell you that if the right safeguards are there (and it's possible to implement such safeguards) I can deal with that.

Your mileage may vary.

im a cynical prick and feel that a whole crisis will be created by the media after a few high prpfile cases, the pols will scream "we need to do something . . . "   next thing you know lw passed.  bingo

[240 is Back]

tough one here.   i'd guess more than half the people on the road in broke ass south florida don't carry insurance.

if EVERY car had a black box, surely they'd tie it to insurance - a nice cool kill switch, so you can't start the car unless your insurance is current.

it sure would clear up the roads for the morning drives