Posted on 10/09/2005 5:04:56 PM PDT by Ben Mugged
In what is becoming a familiar scene in courtrooms nationwide, information collected from a car’s “black box” was used to convict a motorist of criminal charges.
On June 30, a Peabody, Mass., District Court jury found Michelle Zimmerman guilty of misdemeanor motor vehicle homicide in the death of her front seat passenger, Kenneth Carlson. The jury concluded Zimmerman was driving negligently when she skidded out of control and struck a tree on Jan. 4, 2003. Information collected from the event data recorder (EDR), or black box, in her GMC Yukon reported that Zimmerman was driving 58 mph in a 40 mph zone—on an icy road, according to Essex Assistant District Attorney William J. Melkonian. EDR data also showed that Zimmerman never applied the brakes.
Judge Santo Ruma sentenced Zimmerman to two years in prison, one year to be served with the balance suspended for three years of probation. The conviction carries a statutory 10-year loss of license.
Defense lawyer Robert Weiner has vowed to appeal based on his claims that the EDR data was misinterpreted and that police illegally obtained the data. The case could set a legal precedent in Massachusetts and nationwide where EDR information already has been introduced in more than two-dozen cases.
(Excerpt) Read more at abrn.com ...
Should be driver tested for reaction speed, etc.
Should be driver tested for reaction speed, etc.
Isn't that what a behind the wheel test is for?
Maybe the new ones do, but none of my pre-1980 vehicles has a 'black box'. I'll keep driving those as long as I can, 'cause I can fix them, too.
My taxes are done at my accountants office. However, I would like to set up a camera in your office to watch you construct strawman arguments. :-)
Time to reassess this. If you are going uphill on ice, your indicated speed (speedometer) may be less than the actual vehicle speed if there is a loss of traction.
Going down hill on an icy road, the one way to guarantee loss of control is to hit the brakes. You are often better off to let engine compression slow you as well as it will and stay off the binders.
If the tattle tale isn't telling the whole story (terrain, etc.) then it bears false witness.
ABS systems sense when tires/wheels are locked up and the vehicle is still in motion.That is how they work. Some newer cars sense the traction gained at an given moment and transfer power to tires/wheels that register the best "grip" at that moment. This information would be recorded along with the rest. As for spinning tires going uphill, while I cannot name a current system in use, I would offer that a similar system could be employed to monitor such happenings.
Maybe one of the new ABS, traction control systems will keep you going in the direction you intended, but if you learned to drive before those systems came out, one thing that was drilled into your head is that hitting the brakes on ice is a sure way to lose control of the vehicle.
A tire rotating while in contact with the road--or even ice--at least has a chance to steer the vehicle. One which is sliding along doesn't do anything for you.
We drive as we were trained if we are good drivers, and this person may well be being judged by and on the basis of a technology which did not exist at that time.
"My taxes are done at my accountants office. However, I would like to set up a camera in your office to watch you construct strawman arguments. :-)"
That statement was idiotic, it doesn't answer the question of whether you would allow any and every intrusion into your personal life to "stop anything illegal". You could be engaging in bank fraud for all I know, so therefore I think your computer needs a black box key logger, don't you?
Or are you inable to see the moronic inconsistency that comes from being statist government hack? Surveillance for everyone but me!
"therefore I think your computer needs a black box key logger"
Can you say "Able Danger"?
You did not ask that question of me but since you brought it up...
I did not say I would allow any and every intrusion into my personal life to "stop anything illegal." I made two statements and only two statements.
1. I do not have a problem with auto black boxes being used to as evidence of criminal wrong doing.
2. People are less likely to break the law when they know they are being watched.
Everything else you have implied or extrapolated is a figment of your overactive imagination.
not if a criminal act is suspected..
"1. I do not have a problem with auto black boxes being used to as evidence of criminal wrong doing."
Then you should have no problem wearing an anklet recording device to make sure you aren't in an illegal bordello.
"2. People are less likely to break the law when they know they are being watched."
Therefore they should always be watched. ALWAYS.
"Everything else you have implied or extrapolated is a figment of your overactive imagination."
Either that, or a result of your inability to produce a coherent line of reasoning. It's one OR the other, isn't it.
"black boxes only contain a few seconds of data"
lets see. car, skidding, on an icy road, couple seconds of data...
if you go into a skid on an icy road and your foot is on the gas, engine will very quickly rev up and altho you may actually be in motion at 5mph your speedometer can easily register at 58mph.
bad defense lawyer.
Do you want everyone over 60 to get a free pass for injury accidents they caused? Why bother with a jury?
Anyone that can say living under that kind of monitoring is freedom is pathological.
no, I just don't want them to be presumptively prosecuted. get some "black box happy" assistant district attorney, and I can see that happening.
Oh dear. You really do have an over active imagination. Either that or you, yourself, have visited illegal bordellos and cheated on your taxes. Where else would you get these fantasies from?
If the memory is only five to ten seconds all one would have to do is *shrug their shoulders* if the computer memory was completely devoid of data. Just say, "The car took a really hard smack, but we were fortunately all wearing our seatbelts and we thankfully weren't injured in the accident..."
The primitive data recorder can't account for deer running into traffic, loose boulders rolling down muddy hillsides, tractor-trailers barreling onto your rear bumper at 95 m.p.h., state troopers seeking to get past you in the left lane, and a whole bunch of other circumstances that could mandate "illegal" traffic maneuvers shortly before an accident could occur.
They're a bad idea and should be rejected by decent people.
~ Blue Jays ~
Reprogram it.
Or don't disable the box, disable the sensors feeding into it.
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