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BISMARCK, N.D. -- Raymon Holmberg didn't know his new sedan came equipped with the long arm of the law. The dealer hadn't bothered to mention the "black box," a computer chip that stores information on speed and seat belt use. "When I bought my car," he said, "I didn't realize I was also buying a highway patrolman to sit in the back seat." Holmberg, a state senator, believes his privacy was violated and is taking aim at black boxes. Lawmakers in 10 other states are also hoping to regulate black boxes, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Greasing the skids for speed-limiting technology.. From tomorrow, all new vehicles sold in the EU will have mandatory black boxes fitted that record technical data and will be accessible by authorities, greasing the skids for surveillance-powered speed limiting technology. While for the time being, drivers can opt-out of using the feature, privacy advocates fear the technology will become mandatory once it is properly rolled out. Back in 2019, the European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) announced that July 6 would mark the day when all car manufacturers would be forced to fit new models with a system that keeps track of...

AIRO (AP) - The voice and data recorders from the EgyptAir plane that crashed into the Mediterranean nearly a month ago are "extensively damaged" and will need repairs before they can be analyzed, an Egyptian official said Friday, dampening hopes for quick answers as to what caused the disaster. The official didn't elaborate on how long the repairs would take but said if this cannot be done in Egypt, the so-called "black boxes" would be sent abroad. The official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak to the media. With the wreckage of the Airbus...

Search crews located the data recorders for EgyptAir Flight 804 close to an area where human remains and debris from the crashed flight have been found, an Egyptian government source told CBS News on Saturday. Egyptian media, including state media, were reporting the same development, CBS News correspondent Holly Williams reports. Late Saturday, a U.S. intelligence source confirmed to CBS News the data recorders, commonly known as black boxes, have been approximately located by their pings and that recovery efforts were underway. There has been no official confirmation, and EgyptAir wouldn't confirm or deny that the black boxes have been...

Things that shouldn’t be there have a way of turning up at the omnipresent installations of the world’s largest bureaucracy known as the United Nations. Back in the days when Kofi Annan was UN Secretary General, it was black boxes from crashed planes unearthed from filing cabinets at UN Manhattan headquarters.

We're all familiar with event data recorders -- or as they're more commonly known, "black boxes". EDRs are standard equipment on airplanes, and any time there's a mishap, news programs are full of journalists making guesses about what the recorders will reveal.If you're a regular reader of this blog, you know that EDRs are coming to cars, too. In fact, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has backed legislation to make the devices mandatory on all new vehicles, beginning with the 2015 model year.What you may not know is that the new legislation would only affect around 4% of vehicles...

Bypassing Congress, the Obama administration has issued a proposed administrative rule, which if adopted, would mandate the installation of "black boxes" in all automobiles and light trucks beginning in 2014. The U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) proposed the regulation on Dec. 7, which it said “would capture valuable safety-related data in the seconds before and during a motor vehicle crash.” The proposed standard would require automakers to install event data recorders (EDRs) – so-called “black box devices” -- to collect specific safety related data in all light passenger vehicles beginning Sept. 1, 2014. Transportation Secretary...

Bypassing Congress, the Obama administration has issued a proposed administrative rule, which if adopted, would mandate the installation of “black boxes” in all automobiles and light trucks beginning in 2014. The U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) proposed the regulation on Dec. 7, which it said “would capture valuable safety-related data in the seconds before and during a motor vehicle crash.” The proposed standard would require automakers to install event data recorders (EDRs)—so-called “black box devices”—to collect specific safety-related data in all light passenger vehicles beginning Sept. 1, 2014. …

Mandatory "Event Data Recorders" will even know you're speeding in reverse. After a certain point, it's not paranoia. The latest brick in the wall is the predictably named "Moving Ahead For Progress in the 21st Century Act," also known as Senate Bill 1813. (See here for the full text of the bill itself; the relevant section is 31406.) This legislation -- already passed by the Senate and likely to be passed by the House -- will impose a legal requirement that all new cars made beginning with the 2015 models be fitted with so-called Event Data Recorders (EDRs). These are...

New Law To Require 'Black Boxes' In All Cars New Law Mandates Black Boxes In All Cars By 2015 By Bailey Johnson A recently passed bill will require all cars to come equipped with "black boxes" that record vehicle data. These Event Data Recorders (EDR), similar to their airplane counterparts, will record data such as speed, brake force and electrical systems monitoring. The days of a car crash being one driver's word against another look to be history. Senate Bill 1813 (known as Map-21) mandates that automakers install EDRs in all new vehicles starting in 2015.

The National Traffic Highway Safety Association expects to have a decision by the end of the year on whether all new vehicles will be required to have 'event data recorders' installed. Known as 'black-boxes' the recorders collect vehicle data in the moments leading up to during, and after a crash. Unlike aircraft 'black-boxes' the vehicle data recorders do not make audio recordings.

The Brazilian Navy and Air Force have announced the termination of the SAR mission for Air France Flight 447. All hope for solving the mystery of Flight 447 now rests on finding the “black boxes”. Very few noticed the Le Figaro article late Thursday night which stated: According to several sources contacted Thursday, French forces have captured a signal, “they revolve around the past few days to locate it,” said a military source. “The question now is rather whether the issuer is still attached to the black box view of the circumstances of the accident,” says a close source. As...

SAO PAULO — A weak signal from the flight data recorders of the Air France jet that crashed into the Atlantic killing all 228 people on board have been located, French newspaper Le Monde reported on its web site Tuesday. According to the report, French naval vessels picked up a weak signal from the flight recorders on Monday and that a mini submarine has been dispatched to try and find the "black boxes" on the bottom of the rugged ocean floor. An Air France spokeswoman told Reuters she could not confirm the report. The Transport Ministry and the air accident...

American Free Press/Greg Szymanski | December 13 2004 A 9-11 rescue worker recently came forward to say he was told by FBI agents to “keep my mouth shut” about one of the “black boxes” a fellow firefighter helped locate at ground zero, contradicting the official story that none of the flight and cockpit data recorders were ever recovered in the wreckage of the World Trade Center (WTC) towers. Honorary firefighter Mike Bellone claims he was approached by unknown bureau agents a short time after he and his partner, Nicholas DeMasi, a retired New York firefighter, found three of the four...

Big Brother hiding inside cars’ airbags The 1999 Pontiac Trans Am had to be flying, said officer Robert Cairo, a traffic crash investigator with the Trotwood Police Department. The car skidded sideways off Union Road on Feb. 11, went airborne for 110 feet, landed in a field and bounced "like a stone across a lake" before it struck a utility pole, according to police. The impact ejected the driver, who broke his neck, and a passenger, who broke his spine. "I knew high speed was a factor," he said, "but there weren't a lot of road marks, because by the...

Big Brother hiding inside cars’ airbags The 1999 Pontiac Trans Am had to be flying, said officer Robert Cairo, a traffic crash investigator with the Trotwood Police Department. The car skidded sideways off Union Road on Feb. 11, went airborne for 110 feet, landed in a field and bounced "like a stone across a lake" before it struck a utility pole, according to police. The impact ejected the driver, who broke his neck, and a passenger, who broke his spine. "I knew high speed was a factor," he said, "but there weren't a lot of road marks, because by the...