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Beware the black box?

As most people are aware, commercial airliners carry a number of devices, collectively known as the "black box", which record a range of parameters relating to the aircraft's flight and control inputs.

In the event of a crash, that box (which paradoxically is usually bright orange in colour) can provide essential clues as to the cause of the tragedy.

Until recently, those black boxes were an incredibly primitive setup, relying on loops of tape and having a significant mechanical aspect to them.

Of course times and technology marches on and, despite the fact that the aviation industry tends to be a decade or two behind the rest of the world when it comes to its electronics, contemporary "black boxes" are packed with data loggers and other cool bits of kit.

However, you don't have to pull an airliner apart to find a black box, there may be one a lot closer to home that you might not even know about.

I'm talking about the black box recorders that are now becoming increasingly common in cars and other vehicles.

While some GPS systems will record a vehicle's location and speeds, even more hi-techery lurks in systems such as air-bag activators and other control systems within the guts of a modern car.

In fact, the trend is towards a level of monitoring that may well exceed that found in aviation.

G-forces, braking, acceleration, speed, impacts -- a massive array of operational and input data is being constantly tracked and recorded within the bowels of many modern cars -- and everyone wants to get their hands on that data when something goes wrong.

A vehicle leaves the road on a wet night, smashing through fences and ending up against a tree, leaving its occupant severely injured and unable to answer questions about the event.

What caused the crash?

Did the driver fall asleep at the wheel? Was he driving too fast for the conditions? Did some kind of mechanical failure precipitate the loss of control?

The clue provided by the black box in that vehicle will contain valuable clues for police, insurers and the vehicle's manufacturer.

But who owns that information and should it be made available "on demand" to those parties?

Initially I thought the information ought to be the property of the vehicle owner and that (s)he should have to give their permission before it could be handed over to other parties. But then I reconsidered that position.

As far as I can see, there's no good reason not to make that information available to the parties I have listed.

Insurers have a right to be accurately informed as to the cause of the crash. Police have a right to know if the driver broke the law and the vehicle's manufacturer may be able to improve the safety of their cars if the information reveals any kind of defect that could be remedied.

In fact, the only reason any driver might want to prevent the passing of that data onto other parties is if they know they have broken the law.

However, the very fact that these black boxes now exist (and will become mandatory in all new cars sold in the USA by 2015) raises an issue...

Instead of detecting crimes *after* an accident -- why not use this technology to prevent the crime in the first place?

Why not mandate that all new cars must have speed governors?

As I have been told countless times by police, it is *NEVER* legal to exceed the posted speed limit, not even if you do so to avoid an accident or increase safety (such as when passing). Bottom line -- there is no legal reason on earth to allow any vehicle to exceed 100kph -- so why not just mandate that cars have that limit built into them?

Many modern cars are already governed to a "safe" maximum speed, even though it is usually over twice our open road limit. Most high-performance European cars for example, are electronically limited to 155mph, even though they are actually capable of higher speeds. The technology is there -- so why don't we use it?

Of course I've asked this question in these columns many times before -- and no sensible answer has been forthcoming -- I suspect it's simply that the lawmakers themselves enjoy "a bit of a blat" in their ministerial cars from time to time, or perhaps even they really do appreciate that there are occasions when exceeding the posted limit (albeit briefly) will actually reduce your chances of being involved in a road smash.

This is why I'm pretty sure we won't see the obvious extrapolation of this black-box technology...

What would that be?

Well it's not too hard to imagine that every time you get a new WOF or relicense your vehicle, the issuing authority plugs into your car's black box and records the number of times you have exceeded the 100Km open-road limit.

Then, along with your payment for the WOF/Rego, you'll get a nice little invoice for the speeding fines that go with those infringements and, unless you pay, you won't be driving that vehicle home again.

Won't happen?

Don't be too sure about that. Remember -- it is *revenue* and really it'd be no different to a speed camera.

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