, When you are in a car accident, there\'s always an inevitable he-said-she-said as both parties report to the insurance companies. Claims investigators sometimes have little else to go on besides what each person has said.
Black boxes eliminate some of the guess work from car accident claims. Vehicle event data recorders aren\'t actually black or in a box, but they do keep track of important measurements for car crashes. For example, the device records if the brakes were engaged, how long before the crash before they were activated and the speed at the time of impact are some examples of important data black boxes hold.
The perception is that these recorders are new to vehicles and would require time and money to install into cars. This isn\'t the case as a majority of cars, over 90 percent in fact, already include event data recorders in the manufacturing process. Major automakers like Ford, GMC and Toyota have had some form of event data recorders in their vehicles for years.
While there is an overwhelming majority of voluntary installation of black boxes, Congress has been working to make it mandatory for all cars by September 1. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration proposed their intent to mandate their installation to all cars in 2004. In 2010, it estimated that over 85 Supra Tk Black percent of cars would have event data recorders already installed anyway by the time they successfully passed the standard.
The black box legislation is essentially a new set of rules for Event data recorders since so many vehicles are already equipped. The mandate now requires the black boxes record 15 types of measurements: pre-crash speed, engine throttle, brake use, changes in forward velocity, driver seat belt use, airbag warning lamp status and airbag deployment times.
All of the data is also required to be publicly available. Already, Ford and GMC have made the information recorded on the devices available to the public since 2009. Some automakers with older event data recorders installed may have to disable them until new software can be installed. However, the device will still be recording data.
The new standards will also allow first responders to an Supra Tk Black accident scene access to the black box data immediately. Police with warrants will also be able to access the data should it become pertinent to an investigation. The device is technically owned by the vehicle\'s owner, but in the event of a crash or other incident the information will be made available.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has estimated the costs of including black boxes in the final 8.4 percent of cars without them to be around $24 million. That assumes that 15.5 million vehicles will be sold this year since the estimate.
Currently, event data recorders are subject to few regulatory standards. Some only recorded pre-crash or post-crash data and some may be as old as 20 years, depending on the Supra Tk Black make and model of the vehicle. The devices have become integral in recreating crash scenarios and improving safety over the years.
