car "black boxes"

[teemfedx]

i was reading an article about the run-away toyota cars, and they were saying that they could see how many times, and with what force the brake, or gas pedal was pushed. they said this is only for maintenance records and so fourth, but if you get into an accident, they can easily place blame on you for "reacting too late" or "traveling at too high a rate of speed".

i feel that it could help determine the cause of an accident, or it could just be used as false "evidence' against you so the insurance companies dont have to pay out.

any thoughts or experiences with this?

[usdm420]

Not sure how they can tell if you reacted late to an accident? Its not like they have a video camera to know when a car pulled out in front of you, or slammed on it's brakes, ran a redlight, etc.

But Nissan has these in the GTR's, and they use them to void transmission warranties all the time on them.

[Daddy_Digital]

my thoughts are...

HONDA FTW!!

[The God Damn Batman]

old news.

[92hatchtuner]

I don't think they can tell about accidents maby if you did something stupid to break your car so they don't have to warranty you crap

[ekhatch]

thats why you get a HONDA

[JDM Jon]

I thought it was funny about the Prius story the other night.
The dude was going 90mph for 23 minutes because his pedal was supposedly stuck?
Yet the whole time he never tried to put it in neutral or anything because he thought he would flip haha.

[crx3]

Here is a link to the 1st car "black box" case I heard of years ago. The CPU data in a 2002 Trans-Am was used in a case against driver Edwin Matos after he killed two girls in another car. He stated that he was going 50 MPH in a 30, but witnesses said he was going faster. The data from the CPU revealed that he was in fact going more than 100 MPH when he crashed into the other vehicle.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2003-05-15-boxes-usat_x.htm

http://www.caranddriver.com/features/03q4/your_car_as_a_witness_for_the_prosecution-column

[94gay-lude]

drive old cars..