For some folks, absolutely.
As information continues to explode in our increasingly wired society, so does the evidence. Take, for example, the black boxes that were used to keep track of Nissan GT-R's and how they were operated.
You didn't think Nissan wanted to be saddled with the huge transmission bill when it grenaded after being launched multiple times, did you?
But in other circumstances, it can be the tool used against you to put you in jail.
Take, for example, the case of Justine Winter. As a 16-year old girl she was involved in a collision with a pregnant mother and son in which all three perished. Winter lived to tell her side, but playing a more critical role was the data recorded from text messages and the vehicle's black box.
Long story short, because the black box indicated she had sped UP before the head-on crash, and the text messages to her then boyfriend indicated she would end her life in a car crash, she's now in jail.
In my opinion, rightfully so.
But what does this kind of data mean for the rest of us? How will this play into our ownership experience going forward?
If you are unfortunate enough to land in court after a serious automobile accident, the star witness against you may not be an eyewitness or even a human being. It could be your car.Today’s high-tech automobiles increasingly rely on computers to maximize performance and monitor operating systems. But while the under-the-hood computers are doing that, they may also be recording data about your driving.
Typically, that information is collected by a vehicle’s “event data recorder,” or EDR, a computer module that is often compared to the “black box” on a commercial airliner. Among other things, EDRs are capable of recording a number of driver behaviors, including brake application, steering, speed at time of impact in the event of a crash and whether the driver and passengers were using seatbelts...
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