[SGVLUG] black boxes in your car

[Michael Proctor-Smith]

On 8/21/06, Emerson, Tom <Tom.Emerson at wbconsultant.com> wrote:
> > -----Original Message----- Of matti
> >
> > many new cars have blackboxes...
> > potential privacy concerns noted
>
> This is a double edged sword -- yes, in some (perhaps many) cases it
> will help prove "you" did all you could to avoid an accident, but the
> cynic in me says that 9 times out of 10, your own insurance company will
> pick the data apart in order to show you were at fault and therefore
> deny many claims  (though this is a diminishing returns problem -- it
> may cost the company more to analyze the data than it will to simply pay
> the claim...)
>
> OTOH, if you *know* you were "negligent" in some (minor to major) way,
> knowing that "the black box" will confirm that will only make people wig
> out and scream "my privacy has been invaded!"  Maybe I'm becoming an old
> codger, but my gut instinct on this one is, "don't break 'the law', and
> you won't have to worry what the EDR says..."
>
> Now, one case that WOULD make me bitch and moan a lot would be if NO
> accident occurred, but an officer pulls me over, and without a word to
> me pulls out some form of scanner type device (perhaps bluetooth based?)
> to read off "what I'd been doing for the last xx miles" and writes me a
> ticket for a marginal infraction (such as speeding up to 66 to safely
> pass a car...)  For this, however, I believe some form of precedent has
> been set in that the "arresting officer" has to physically SEE you break
> the law -- anything else is "hearsay" evidence  (I'm told this may be
> one way to beat a radar ticket if the officer with the radar is in a
> plane or helicopter...)

Just so you know they do not use radar from aircraft. Instead there
are markers a set distance apart on/next to the road. They then just
have to time how long a car takes to travel between the two markers,
then do the math to calculate your speed. If anything it is harder to
disprove then radar because you have no argument that the radar may
have been reading another car instead of yours.

Also no one is going to write a ticket for 66 in a 65 as it would not
be possable to prove that your cars speedometer is 100% accurate( or
more importantly that it is accurate enough to prove that you were
braking the law).

The lesson here is to not be noticed on a road that is enforced by aircraft.