Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Does your car have a black box?

Here's a site with some good info about the black boxes now being installed in cars. Some makes had them as far back as '94. Starting in '14, all new cars have to have one. For a complete list of what cars have them prior to '14, click on the blue button labeled 'Harris Technical'.
BLACK BOXES

My 2010 Chevy truck has 17 computers on it.I guess one could be black....

All pickups sold in Montana have had them for years due to the number of fatalities. The most common thing they hear when downloading the information after a wreck is.

"Here, hold my beer, I'm gonna try something"

I'm surprised Oprah wasn't on the list.

after the faked "my accelerator stuck, that's what caused my crash" scams I can't blame them for installing them.

Onstar

Whether you pay for a subscription or not.

When I discontinued my Onstar subscription GM contacted me and said there was something I needed to do it didn't disconnect properly. I sent them a return email. "Not my problem"

What does the "black box" actually do? Does it record your voice or something, or transmit a GPS signal?

If you own a smartphone, it doesn't matter what you drive. You're a walking 'black box'.

Generally, they are Airbag Control Modules and the are designed to "tell" the air bag when to deploy and when not to deploy. They are equipped to detect sudden change in speed usually deceleration like hard braking etc. Most will only hold a few events and when a new event occurs the oldest drops off. All that I'm aware of do not have a date or time stamp per se. But if you were involved in a crash and the airbag deployed the information concerning that even and several seconds prior to it would be captured. If you are suspect of criminal wrong doing the police may/will obtain a warrant and get the information. It will record speed, throttle percentage, if vehicle was braking or not, if the seatbelts were being worn etc. A.C.Ms. do not collect voice or G.P.S. information.

If you read the article in the OP, the new ones do a whole lot more. They record everything from your speed to deficiencies in your love life. The feds require them to record about 10 things but they can record up to 30 events if the manufacturer turns everything on.

Believe what you want, I extract the "Black Boxes" and read their data as part of my job. They contain pages of hexadecimal data that mean little to anyone but an engineer. The main information that is sought by law enforcement has to do with how fast you were going prior to the cash, whether or not brakes were applied etc. Big Brother is watching that's the bad news on the bright side his vision isn't that great and he needs a warrant. You could always disconnect the module, but of the airbag won't.

no need to worry comrades. The U.S. would never take your personal data without your permission.

There's way more information tracked and gathered in other devices like onboard GPS, cell phones, and theft tracking systems.

My new 2015 Dodge Ram has GPS and related things on it, and a separate GPS tracking device like OnStar. I don't care for that much.

Record all they want i have nothing to hide, so puck them

Actually, I had a car like that about ten years ago. Believe it of not, a BMW. I do not know if the accelerator stuck of there was another reason, but the engine would rev, the gear would stick and it was almost impossible to stop.

It was my wife's car and I got rid of it asap. Dealer could not explain it.

tag