22 March 2010 - 12:00
Toyotas to get ‘black boxes’
One aspect of the Toyota recall you might not have considered. The company is developing a more comprehensive ‘black box' data recorder to be installed in every car. Like the ones in aircraft, these will record exactly what's happening in key systems up to a crash.
They'll keep an eye on speed, throttle, brakes and more.
Toyota wants to use the data to help diagnose the causes of ‘unintended acceleration'. There's a big storm brewing in the US, where many consumer groups and members of the congress are alleging that there's a more complex problem than the sticky throttle pedal that's being recalled in Britain at the moment.
Of course, you can immediately see where this is going. If this idea catches on, every move we make as drivers will be recorded and could be stored. Fancy that? Us neither.
Paul Horrell, Consultant Editor of Top Gear magazine
Want to comment on this?
No but it will help cut costs to the manufacturers being sued by two bit idiots who claim they cannot stop their car. It will also help police in accidents where they are trying to find out what happened. For example if you are the one that gets T-Boned and are unconscious, maybe a coma and the other driver claims you ran the red light. There are no witnesses. There will be a time and date stamp on the black box which they can then cross check with the lights system and the other driver gets his/her's just deserts instead of blaming it on you the coma patient or dead dude. What scares me is they could later be linked to our nanny state like government constantly monitoring speeds and sending speeding fines via our black boxes.
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No but it will help cut costs to the manufacturers being sued by two bit idiots who claim they cannot stop their car. It will also help police in accidents where they are trying to find out what happened. For example if you are the one that gets T-Boned and are unconscious, maybe a coma and the other driver claims you ran the red light. There are no witnesses. There will be a time and date stamp on the black box which they can then cross check with the lights system and the other driver gets his/her's just deserts instead of blaming it on you the coma patient or dead dude. What scares me is they could later be linked to our nanny state like government constantly monitoring speeds and sending speeding fines via our black boxes.
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Yes I think Cold fusion missed the point, I thought the black box was a great idea until Shaddow mentioned the black box link to big Nanny.. then again I expect the manufacturers would not be too keen to let Nanny share the info unless it was accident related.
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ColdFusion commented on this article
at 03:19 am on 23 March 2010
This is soooo not going to help. What if you're just trundling along, you go through an intersection and then you find yourself being t-boned by another car? Won't help, mate.
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