GM's little Black Boxes

[Milton Bradley]

http://washingtontimes.com/national/200307...10645-1038r.htm


http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/edr-site/media.html


When I found out General Motors was hiding Black Boxes in their automobiles without the consumers knowledge, I pretty much lost all respect, and brand loyalty to my favorite car manufacturer. It kills me to say it, but I think these guys are traitors. Privacy is all to important for ANY product manufacturer to hide things in their product that may in the future benefit themselves, or the insurance companies. Particularly when it will inevitably be at my expense, whether literally, or figuratively. They crossed the line in my mind, and I don't think a simple apology would rectify this situation.



This is cowardly behavior in my opinion. Another attempt at passing the buck, and relieving themselves from any potential liability.



How do YOU feel about this issue?



Do you think they will ever hide listening devices in there as well?



Do you think they can already listen to the cars that have the ONSTAR system at will?



Just wondering.

[giuliano]

i consider myself a better than average driver, have a good record of not crashing into other people, and would be happy if black boxes were in all cars. i think this is more likely to save me from copping the blame for someone else's lies, than get me into trouble. even if it did get me into trouble, it would be my driving that was to blame, not the black box.

i don't see this as an invasion of privacy. it would be an invasion if the data was streamed to GM, where an ex-partner could check up on your driving if they felt like it. that's not happening.

i support black boxes used for forensic evidence.

[bugsbunny04]

Read some of my posts under Men, buy a BMW and most reliable cars, you will get a feel for my automotive knowledge.

As for how I feel about GM's little black boxes: Its called, you have this little doo-hickey under the dash on the drivers side. It usually sais "hood" but the special ed version has a picture of a generic seventies model sedan with its hood up. p-u-l-l. Lift the flat thing on the front of the car (us gear heads refer to this, effectionately, as the "hood"). Eventually you will get introduced to this maze of wires. find the wires that dont go to any or your driving accessories (stereo, head lights, ect). You will eventually come across something that looks like a computer. Thats exactly what it is. Leave that alone. Find the only thing left that has a collection of wires going to it. It is probably a simple plug in (I'm not really experienced on the late models, so this is a guess). pull it. Somewhere in your garage, you probably have this neat widget called a "sledge hammer". Have fun.

Seriously, the black box is probably part of the ECU. If not, taking it out would probably cause the SES light to come on. If you just drive around with the SES light on, and don't watch your guages and monitor the engines running the old fashioned way (which gets hard with the computer making corrections that can hide problems), you could develope a serious problem and kill your engine and not know it until its too late.

Anyway, look, the only way it is going to be looked at is if you are in an accident. The only time where it is going to tell a lie is when traction has been lost, and it thinks your are going faster than you are. It is basically like having an extra eye witness at the scene. If you get in a wreck, and it was not your fault, is it not a nice thing to have proof that you were obeying the law, and that the other person was driving like a psycho, as happened to me today. That dumb bitch's 04 pontiac probably has a black box in it. too bad it cant show how stupid she was really being. She tried to cross a split four lane, with a fifth only in the middle, at a 30' angle to the direction she was going to be facing...when she got to the other side of the f'n road. she blew past the right lane unscathed, barely had enough clearance in the left lane, came into the middle only lane...WAM! Too bad nobody had a video camera. It was a real kodak moment for me, my first wreck that was not my fault.

[argonak]

trying to figure out why osmeone wouldn't want a black box in their car. . . sounds like a great idea to me. get in an accident, you got more proof on your side that things went the way you said they would.

unless you're lieing, so i guess that would be a reason not to have a black box.

[castille]

Damn, I was gonna ram someone's car and blame them for the accident. Stupid black boxes, blocking honest psychos like us from causing death and havoc.

[Milton Bradley]

Nobody out there sees this as yet another attemp to monitor everything, everywhere, all the time?


Think about it.


Who insists that the car companies do this?


Why that would be the government, and the insurance industry, right?


I am certain this was not GM's idea. Howevver, they sold out, and I hold them responsible for that fact.

[giuliano]

i don't think they can monitor anything. they can only dig the information out afterwards, if you have a crash for example.

it's not the same thing as monitoring.

[Milton Bradley]

Give them a few more years.


Just like cameras on city streets, its coming your way like it, or not. Oh, and you can cover the cost as well.

[Zeebadee]

This (the monitoring) would be fine with me if the customer had an opportunity to opt out. Make it voluntary and I have no problem with it. As it is, soon a routine traffic stop will have the cops plugging in and checking for speed violations. Next to come will be a full-fledged telemetry system monitoring acceleration, wheel speed, and lateral G-forces, with a full GPS readout on route and stops made, with corresponding times. What will the courts begin to accept as probable cause for stopping some teenager out for a Saturday night cruise through town by an over-zealous trooper?

[giuliano]

1. there are privacy laws to prevent streaming this information in most circumstances
2. i personally dislike and reject the type of reasoning that says "next they will be doing..... xxxx." when they try that, THEN you object. you don't object to a law or practice because you suspect it may eventually lead onto something else you don't like.
3. i'm an automotive engineer and coincidentally the topic of ownership and access to this type of info is something i'm formally researching right now, it's very interesting and you're both dead right, it will progress in the next few years via Telematics and it needs to be closely monitored and regulated. the outcome of Big Brother watching your every move is unacceptable.

[Zeebadee]

You can object all you want. It's coming and there's not a damned thing you can do to stop it. That information is just too valuable for you to be able to suppress.

[giuliano]

it's not true. i happen to know that one car-maker here in australia vetoed data recording on its models, for fear that buyers would choose something else instead.

GM in the US have been quite brave with that, i'm surprised they've just gone ahead and fitted them.

surely there are privacy laws that cover the transmission of this info? it's no different to anything else, like cell phones.