Automobile Black Box Sends Driver to Jail 825
myzor writes "This article from the Montreal Gazette reports that a driver got 18 months in jail for speeding that killed a man, after the black box in his car revealed he was going 157 km/h (98 mph) in a 50 km/h zone in downtown Montreal. The recording device, which stores data on how a car is driven in the last five seconds before a collision, showed that four seconds before impact, the driver had the gas pedal to the floor and didn't brake before impact." Reader ergo98 writes "Setting a precedent for the Canadian legal system, a Quebec man was convicted based upon the incriminating evidence found in his own car's black box." The Star also has another article looking at the issues surrounding the data recorder.
That's hardly a privacy issue (Score:5, Interesting)
Well I think they all just need to check their manuals and see if there's one in their car. Either way, who cares; you shouldn't be going insanely out of control in the car anyway, and if you cause an accident, take some responisibility for it.
How did it take them three years to figure that out? Wasn't the data right there in their hands?
Before attempting to remove... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:The guy that got hit deserved it. (Score:5, Interesting)
also montreal drivers know that we're in the jay-walking capital of the world.
On the BMW motorcycle list i subscribe to (Score:2, Interesting)
Only 18 months? (Score:4, Interesting)
Remember.... (Score:1, Interesting)
Guaranteed No Box In Mine (Score:1, Interesting)
Respect for privacy??? (Score:2, Interesting)
People who drive cars recklessly make me sick... you are trundling around in a heavy chunk of metal, thats squashy on the inside, and hard on the outside. You are endangering everyone elses lives doing this. You must do everything reasonably possible to be as safe as you can.
If you want speed, be a real man (women are generally more intelligent) and buy a quick bike. Far quicker, and mistakes are far more severely punished.
Remove tinfoil hat: real issues (Score:5, Interesting)
However, there are some issues to be careful about:
* Five seconds is probably not long enough to know what really happened. I could have mashed the brake to the floor at t-10s, then hit the gas to avoid being T-Bone'd at t-6s... in that case, it looks like I was rushing headlong into the wreck.
* But how long is enough? 30 seconds? Five minutes? A day or two? Pick a silly extreme, and someone is likely to attempt to legislate it.
* Who has read access to the data? It's my data, so I should be able to plug the car into my USB port and see it for myself (as should my attorney).
* Who has write access? Obviously, the car's sensors and nobody else. But are there safeguards (digital signature?) to ensure against tampering? And what if a hacker replaces the car's CPU?
* How about "erase"? IIRC, airline black boxes have a button that the pilot can hit on his way out of the cockpit to erase the voice recorder after a successful landing (defined: one you walk away from). Is this a Good Thing, or Considered Harmful?
* Is it fair if my car has the feature, but the other guy's doesn't? You can tell that I was speeding, but what if he was speeding more? Remember the "Malcolm in the Middle" episode, where the camera "saw" Mom pull out in front of someone, but another camera showed that the other car made a U-Turn right in front of her?
Lots of issues to be resolved. But I'll get one, if I can, *if* there's an insurance discount.
as it stands (Score:3, Interesting)
Now if they start monitoring everything (as in every speed you go, along with GPS to know what road you were) that's a completely different issue, and should raise some privacy concerns.
This, OTOH, should make the roads safer, as well as reduce insurance rates.
What a lunatic (Score:3, Interesting)
But I really fail to see how this is interesting on Slashdot. This is obviously not a privacy issue. The black box records information about the last five seconds before a collision. That's hardly a privacy concern.
Privacy issue? (Score:5, Interesting)
I concur with the other posters that there's not a privacy issue here, when you're on a public road driving a vehicle that not only affects you but the roads you drive on and everyone you encounter during that drive, the needs of public safety outweigh any "privacy" issues with the car recording speed or other engine statistics. It's not like the car is sitting there with a notebook writing down where you're going, either.
This guy's own stupidity got him in trouble, I for one hope that he gets his license revoked for life. They have good public transport up there. Let him take the bus.
Black boxes could be good (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:That's hardly a privacy issue (Score:3, Interesting)
As for the privacy issue:
- the thing has a memory of 5 seconds so it can only be used to say how one party to an impact was driving.
- My understanding of forensics is that they could pretty much tell how fast he was moving before the accident anyway, and the absence of skid marks either means he had ABS or had not braked before impact. This box just makes it easier and more precise.
I have no problem with that. Driving at 100mph where 30 is allowed is just insane.
Re:That's hardly a privacy issue (Score:3, Interesting)
Uh, That is called evidence. I can't say much for Canada either, but in the US, such evidence can be legally aquired by either reasonable cause or a search warrant. I think the auto being in an auto accident alone establishes reasonable cause and such can be searched. Nothing special here. Now, if the person had a laptop computer, I don't think they'd be allowed to sieze the laptop or search its contents unless it had something to do with the crash, or a warrant served.
It is a balance, privacy should not be used to lie (Score:5, Interesting)
How acturate are they? Very. There are two ways to control the fuel injector pulse in cars. ine is Mass Air Flow (MAF) and the ither is speed-density. Either way, the computer is accurate enought to mix fuel to milliseconds on the injector pulse. (And we know milliseconds are forever to a MHZ computer)
The if MAF, the fuel is calcualted by the reading from the MAF sensor which gives the amount of air flow into the engine (take sint oaccount temperature of air too). Add 1/14.7 of that, and you have proper mixture. The other way is speed density. You measure the temperature of the air, the volume (displacement) of the engine, and the RPM, and it knows how much fuel to use as well.
Now that engine is connected to a transmision of fixed ratios. Here, we need to make an assumption, 1) the clutch is not in or failing (slipping) and 2) his wheels aren;t spinning against the pavement. Then from the RPM alone (which we know is tracked) you can accurately calculate the speed.
I think these boxes are a good thing. They will expose negligence and fraud. Also I think they have a tendancy to coroberate your story in an accident and actually come to your defense - that you actively tried to aviod it. All this helps place the blame on the correct person so justice can be served fairly.
I myself have been in 2 accidents where my guilt was questionable, had these been availible I am sure I would not have been at fault.
If you're using privacy to hide the truth, then there's something wrong with what you are doing, and you know that.
Re:That's hardly a privacy issue (Score:3, Interesting)
Beyond that, there's always basic questions to be answered like how do we know that the BBI in the Canadian case wasn't a recording of a 5-second interval where the (front ?) tires (or just one of the tires?) weren't in contact with the road?
Re:Before attempting to remove... (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course that data needs to be there when GM buys the crashed car from the junkyard, so GM built a black box that records the last 5 seconds before an airbag deployment.
There is no conspiracy. GM wants to make sure their safety systems work.
Search Warrent (Score:5, Interesting)
I am not a lawyer, I just watch people that pretend to be lawyers on TV.
What would be the equivalent in the States? (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not defending the US justice system, I think we have some f'd up laws, but this sentence seems pretty lenient to me, consider the guy's obviously a maniacal driver.
Re:The guy that got hit deserved it. (Score:1, Interesting)
montreal drivers know that we're in the jay-walking capital of the world.
Both are reasons to question the black-box data. Sounds like it is pushing the limits of the "laugh test" could this driver really have been driving that fast given the location? Is there corroborating evidence? If the victim really was hit at 157kph, forensics should be able to verify that independent of the black-box.
Re:This is a non-story (Score:5, Interesting)
Driving a car is not a right, but a privilege exerced in public view. Why should you then have any expectation of privacy whilst driving a car? To hide the fact that you are driving in a way that endangers public safety?
You can be pulled over anytime by a cop whenever he sees you driving like a dumbfuck, so what's the difference if it is a blackbox that nails you? Because you can't get away with it anymore?
What DO YOU have so special as to be able to break the law and endanger other people???
Besides, blackboxes are coming anyways. Some years back, in a computer project management class, we had to pick a law-enforcement theme computer project (the teacher has a day job with the $FEDERAL_POLICE_AGENCY).
Bad driving being my major pet peeve, I naturally proposed a computerized driving monitor that would automatically ticket drivers whenever they break traffic laws, thus freeing police for more useful work such as cracking down on criminal spammers.
Well, lo and behold, when he saw the proposal, he curtly refused it with "this is coming anyways"...
So, it's only a matter of time before Big Brother will be your co-pilot...
Re:Remove tinfoil hat: real issues (Score:3, Interesting)
Incorrect. You may be thinking of something else. There is a circuit-breaker than can be pulled to stop the recorders. The recorders are endless-loop, erasing themselves as they go. Wire or tape recorders typically store 30 minutes of data/voice. Digital recorders can store more, but erase on the same principle (FIFO).
In addition to the CVR (cockpit voice recorder) and FDR (flight data recorder), modern aircraft also have computer controlled systems like FADEC (full authority digital engine control) [wikipedia.org] which record and store their own data. Much of this data is transmitted in realtime to ground support engineering for analysis.
Re:That's hardly a privacy issue (Score:2, Interesting)
But if "safety regulations" require you to record yourself in the course of normal daily activities it strikes me that it is equivalent to self-incrimination to use it against a person.
Maybe you're right. It makes sense in my head, but I am having trouble expressing it.
-Peter
Law Isn't Philosophy (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't have any objection to these boxes. I'm a bit of a privacy nut, but I'm also a law-abiding citizen. If we're talking about legislation that begins issuing citations to speeders every time their black box is scanned during an oil change, then I'll certainly join the naysayers. But if it's being used exactly like fingerprints and DNA, to secure convictions for violent criminals, then I'll applaud the technological development. (Yes, I think vehicular manslaughter resulting from driving double the posted speed limit in a metropolitan area constitutes a violent offense.)
Having said that: I don't know what they told you in Philosophy 101, but "slippery slope" isn't a logical fallacy in a courtroom. It's a valid argument, and oftentimes a compelling one.
crib
Re:This is a non-story (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that you do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy when you are driving in your car. If you're a hazard on the road, that's my problem just as much as it is yours. You should not expect a right to privacy when you're cruising down the highway.
On the other hand, you should expect a right to justice if you get slammed by a bad driver. Black boxes eliminate subjective accounts of car accidents.
Re:How is this a privacy issue? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Not so fast, bub (Score:5, Interesting)
'Not so fast, bub...'
This is like saying that I have a right to eat, and since the primary purpose of throwing dynamite in a lake is so that I have something to eat, it must be my right...
Or... I have the right to be happy.. and the primary purpose of me shooting you is to make me happy, therefore shooting you must be my right. =)
In any case, just because you have a right to do something, and there is A method of accomplishing that something, doesn't mean that the METHOD is your right. There may be lots of other methods, and your failure to properly execute a method is valid grounds for making you use a different method (as is the case here with driving).
Re:This is a non-story (Score:2, Interesting)
"Onstar -- Always there. Always ready."
A modest proposal (Score:4, Interesting)
Executive summary: in this post I suggest that our Canadian cousins aren't at fault for carrying technology too far (in using event recorders to prosecute a vehicular homicide case), but that they do not go far enough. I propose that if we're going to use technology in support of public policy (safe driving, etc.) there's a lot better technology to use. Is this a good idea, or a bad one? You decide.
Let's suppose that we're the feds, and we want to "use technology to save lives..."
...in the Vietnam-era sense of "we had to destroy the village in order to save it." Let's think about how we could--relatively inexpensively--implement technology solutions to:
Put a transponder on the vehicle instead of a license plate
Vehicle identification today is based on century-old technology: the stamped metal license plate. Why not replace the license plate with a transponder? It would be a simple exercise: just embed the transponder on the license plate you already use, and pass legislation to make interfering with the device a summary offense. There would be some immediate benefits: a police officer stopping a vehicle at night, particularly a vehicle with an obscured license plate, could interrogate the transponder and automatically retrieve information about drivers associated with the car. If the stopped vehicle belongs to a person with a prison history for violent crime, the officer might respond with a lot more caution, or with backup. The felon is driving his girlfriend's car? Well--we can easily use a database to identify associations: if she posted bail, if she let him report her address to his parole officer, etc., we'd have her information in the database, associated with his. So if the cop stops a car licensed to her, he'd still be warned that there might be a violent felon behind those dark-tinted windows. That's a good thing, right?
Integrate the transponder with in-vehicle information systems already in police cars
A major cause in reduction in crime has been the installation of in-vehicle information systems in police cars. A cop can check outstanding wants or warrants in a jiffy, instead of having to radio information back and forth to somebody else at headquarters. When they were installed in a local township nearby, an enterprising sergeant went to a local shopping center on Saturday afternoon, and started typing in license plate numbers: he made half a dozen arrests that afternoon. Let the guy point a radio at the transponder instead, and integrate the radio with his in-vehicle system, and presto! Watch his productivity soar. A clever use of technology, no?
Require mag-stripe devices as part of the ignition system
Your driver's license probably already has a mag stripe on it--require a simple device in the car to accept a valid driver's license to start the car. And wire the device to the transponder--so interrogating the transponder identifies the vehicle AND the driver. Just think of what we can do then! We can identify kids driving on junior licenses after midnight, we can identify who was driving the car when the vehicle speeds past a checkpoint, or we can use information about vehicle and driver to monitor traffic patterns (where you live vs. where you work). Just think of the ways we can improve public safety, or even public transit. Neato, huh?
Do we have your civil libertarian juices pumping, bunky?
So ask yourself, is this a good thing?
Because, through the course of history, government has used practically every new technology to advance its causes. Sooner or later it will use transponders, databases, and high-speed networks. And if those uses make you nervous, you might start thinking about what arguments you might make.
Where's the slippery slope? (Score:3, Interesting)
The facts of the case are established by the pedestrian's death and the coroner's report. The black box is just another witness to the crime, or perhaps secondary evidence. Same as a surveillance camera or skid marks on the pavement.
Now if someone was convicted of a DUI where the only evidence was erratic driving as recorded by the box, you could expect the lawyers to have a vigorous debate over the reliability and admissibility of that evidence. For instance, what is the legal standard for "tamper-proof"?
Re:Where's the slippery slope? (Score:3, Interesting)
I'd go one step further; the black box is 'extenuating circumstances.'
If the box shows that you're breaking and avoiding, or at least trying to, it might just lend credence to your story that the guy jumped out from behind a parked cube van, and you couldn't see him.....
Re:Law Isn't Philosophy (Score:3, Interesting)
If they started requiring tracking chips in all newborn African American babies, and I'm not an African American baby, then why should I care? Standing against a law doesn't mean that you intend to or regularly do violate said law, only that you disagree with it. For example, I am not sold on the benefits of the HOV system. (You're in VA? You ever take 66 East in the morning?) That doesn't mean I violate the law by traveling by myself in an HOV lane. You can make a reasonable argument against it, as I have many times - but that doesn't mean I violate the law. I don't agree with it, but I'd rather not give the state any of my money, and thus I just take the backroads to work.
Good & Bad (Score:1, Interesting)
Maybe not in this situation, but lets, say you were accelerating in order to prevent the accident. I mean there is only so much a device like this is going to tell you.
It is not like it can see the entire situation.
Sounds like more expensive cars, and another way for some one to be set up. Anyone with enough power could abuse such a device. Lets say the presidents car is speeding goes out of contol and hits you (unlikely but possible). You are stoped at a light.
The CIA, switch the Boxes, or perhaps alter them, making it look like you ran the red light, and that you caused the accident.
This may be good or it may be bad, I think weather anyone likes it or not we are going to have them.
So get used to it.