Four Myths About NHTSA’s Proposal for Mandatory Black Boxes

Twenty-four-hour news networks interrupted their coverage of skydiving cats earlier this week to light a fire under NHTSA's announcement that it planned to mandate event data recorders, or black boxes, be installed in all new cars. Amidst the frenzy, it almost seems as though many reporting on the announcement didn't actually read the proposed NHTSA rule or anything about what the event data recorders actually do. We're here to debunk some of the rumors in circulation. Myth 1: NHTSA's Announcement Last Week Said Something We Haven't Heard Before Nope. NHTSA has been talking about mandating event data recorders since at least 2006, when it first set rules about how voluntarily installed EDRs had to operate. The only thing NHTSA announced recently is that it plans to put this rule into effect beginning in 2014, which was the date floated officially and unofficially during the past year. Myth 2: The White House "Signed Off" on NHTSA's Proposal for Event Data Recorders A number of major news outlets based their reporting of the black box topic on a story published in the Detroit News, which was titled "NHTSA gets White House OK to mandate vehicle 'black boxes.'" This makes it sound like Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood brought a bottle of brandy to the Oval Office, kissed Barack Obama's ring, and said, "Mr. President, even though it's not the day of your daughter's wedding, we'd like your blessing for our plan to require automakers to install black boxes in every car. Can we go ahead with this?" In reality, any time an executive agency proposes a new regulation—whether it's NHTSA or the Forest Service—they have to clear it with the Office of Management and Budget to make sure the new reg doesn't conflict with what another agency is doing, isn't creating some new huge burden for the budget, and that the new rule wouldn't be totally contrary to the president's stated goals. The OMB is part of the White House organizational structure, so while it's technically accurate that the White House cleared the black box plan, this routine rubber stamp is meaningless. Myth 3: Mandating Black Boxes Will Change the Status Quo Does your car have an event data recorder? Even you, the automotive illuminati who read Car and Driver, would be forgiven for not knowing. It's not something listed in a database or published on a window sticker. It turns out that well over 90 percent of new cars sold today in the U.S. already have event data recorders, which automakers have been voluntarily installing for several years. The proposed mandate would extend to the remaining holdover vehicles, which includes some high-end sports cars and a number of Volkswagens and Audis. What we're talking about, then, is a rule that would change a sliver of the automotive market. Typically, automakers—either directly or through group lobby associations—push back against any additional government regulation; they don't want control and they don't want added costs. But when it comes to EDRs,  the counter-campaign against event data recorders has been virtually nonexistent. Toyota's continuing nightmare surrounding unintended acceleration showed car manufacturers just how helpful EDRs can be in defending themselves. When a company can analyze black boxes and say, "Sorry, driver, but the computer recorded you mashing the gas pedal with no input on the brake," that's persuasive evidence. Instrumented Test: 2013 Lincoln MKZ AWD V6 Instrumented Test: 2013 Porsche Boxster Manual Instrumented Test: 2013 Fiat 500 Turbo Myth 4: Privacy is at Risk Because the Gub'mint Is Gonna Track People Make no mistake: The government—local police, the CIA, the FBI, DEA, Homeland Security, water department—can and does track individual cars. Much of the time it's done in a squeaky-clean way, with warrants and court approval for monitoring Fat Tony and the Don Bot. Sometimes, it's a legal gray area, and we wind up with major court battles trying to sort out the rules for law enforcement. (Privacy advocates, like this writer, were pleased by the recent Supreme Court decision saying that law enforcement officers need a warrant to track vehicles using GPS tags.) Event data recorders are an entirely separate matter. They don't transmit data. The boxes record certain characteristics about the vehicle, like steering input, acceleration, seatbelt status, and brake usage, in a sort of "streaming" format, retaining only the past few seconds of data for any given moment. There are serious questions about who owns the data, who can use it, and who can access it. Even with plain-language rules from NHTSA, our judges will end up having to hammer out the details. Bear in mind, though, that a huge cache of information already is stored in in-car GPS systems, and that's all subject to download by the police or an opponent in a lawsuit. The same is true for smart phones, by the way, which contain way more than just GPS coordinates. from Car and Driver Blog http://blog.caranddriver.com

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