Black Boxes in Cars

Does your car have a black box? Do you know? Here's an interesting Montreal Gazette story of a man who was convicted and sentenced to jail for killing someone in an accident, where the man was driving 3 times the speed limit. How do they know he was driving so fast? His car was a witness. The Pontiac Sunfire the man was driving had a black box in it, according to the article, which registered 157km/h (97mph) in a 50km/h (31mph) zone, and also indicated the driver made "no attempt to brake."

Is it commonplace that cars now record speed like this?

Makes you wonder about black boxes in cars. How long before a car's black box has a wireless port that law enforcement can read from using their mobile computer? Scenario: you park in a 2-hr spot on a street in downtown La Jolla, go have lunch and shop, come back 2.2 hours later, and there's a ticket on your windshield. You think it's because you exceeded the 2 hour limit. You're right. But it's a ticket for $900, citing you not only for the parking violation, but the 17 times you exceeded the speed limit in the past 6 months on various roads (the GPS-equipped black box knowing where you were when you were speeding, and what the legal speed limits are where you were at each instance).

Oh, the future is going to be delightful.

Posted by brian at April 16, 2004 10:35 AM