ROAD WARRIOR: Black boxes in newer vehicles raising privacy concerns for drivers

Scott Eugene Knight was cruising the streets of Merced, Calif., in a new Chevrolet Tahoe last year when he hit and killed a pedestrian.

Apparently Knight didn't think it was necessary to get the police involved in the unpleasantness. But his sport utility vehicle thought otherwise.

The vehicle's air bags had deployed in the collision. It's computer system detected the crash, and its OnStar wireless equipment, as it's programmed to do, phoned authorities, notified them of the crash and provided the location.

When police arrived they found the pedestrian's body and a trail of engine fluids leading to the SUV and Knight, who was arrested.

Knight certainly got what he deserved. But the episode makes me wonder if our love affair with the automobile will survive our vehicles turning into snitches.

Few motorists have noticed, but if you drive a newer vehicle, odds are it's equipped with an event data recorder, a black box for lack of a better term. The device, which isn't black or a box, but rather a part of the air bag's electronics, will for five seconds leading up to a crash record a vehicle's speed, if the brakes were engaged and whether or not seat belts were in use.

"Every vehicle made today has some type of recording system," says John Hinch, a special assistant in the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's advanced research and analysis office.

And while a car will only take the next step and phone police if a motorist has paid for the service, some believe the creation of a computer record of driver behavior raises serious privacy concerns and creates the potential for abuse.

"We don't like to be perceived as Big Brother," says Mike Lyons, president of Independent Witness Inc., a Utah company that makes data recorders that, he claims, don't snitch. "But any lawyer worth his salt will pull your box and use it against you. You may have been going through a green light when someone runs a red light and hits you. Even though it's not your fault, if you were traveling 15 mph over the speed limit your car has just tattled on you."

Hinch, however, says there are safeguards against the data being abused. His agency considers the vehicle owner to also be the owner of the data. And the safety administration will only release information culled from black boxes as a composite.

Despite the concerns, he says the devices are necessary to aid the government and manufacturers in making vehicles safer.

"In one-tenth of a second, an air bag has to realize there's a crash and deploy in less than one-twentieth of a second. When you go back, you know why the air bag made the decision to come out. Those types of things are beneficial for the federal government and manufacturers in understanding how well our safety rules are working."

Old fashioned crash analysis, measuring skid marks, factoring in road conditions and witnesses' accounts, is too inexact, he says.

Black box data recently alerted regulators and manufacturers that air bags in the Pontiac Sunfires and Chevrolet Cavaliers sometimes deployed when they shouldn't. The problem was corrected.

Had they been around in the mid-1980s, Hinch believes they would have settled the controversy over the Audi 5000. Motorists alleged the models would suddenly accelerate when the transmission was shifted out of park, even when their feet were on the brake pedal. The automaker countered that drivers simply confused the brake and accelerator pedals.

"If we can get facts on table, we have a lot of things accomplished already," Hinch said. "Data is a good thing."

James Kerr, program manager at Vetronix Corp. of Santa Barbara, agrees. His company sells a device for $2,495 that allows police, accident reconstructionists, insurance investigators and other interested parties to download black-box data.

In matters of privacy, Kerr says, "We recommend that our users ask the owner permission, either written or verbal, before they download data from their vehicle. ... That becomes more gray when law enforcement is involved."

But Lyons, whose company has equipped three local taxicab companies with black boxes, says the push is not about safety, but liability.

"If a cab company can download from our device and see what injury potential there is, they can minimize claims or pay them immediately if they're justified," he says. "Without it, it's all subjective: He said, she said, `my neck hurts.'

"We are a witness to the event."

Although he sees a great potential for lower insurance premiums by collecting the data, Lyons believes it must be balanced with privacy.

That's why Independent Witness' black box doesn't record speed, or seat belt use, or interface with the vehicle's computer. It simply records the crash force, which indicates the potential for injury.

"Will the car tattle on me? As a private citizen, I'm not going to allow that to happen," he says.

Automakers and federal officials hope to soon make black boxes standard equipment on all vehicles.

Tom Kowalick, who is chairman of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Standards Association's effort to develop a worldwide standard for black boxes, believes it's just a matter of time.

"We have major players who have come together to make it happen," he says. "I think everybody is interested in getting this data used for more purposes."

The same players also believe issues of safety will override concerns over privacy. The tragedy commemorated last week may have prepared the public for setting their priorities in that order, he says.

"Maybe since September 11 our sense of security and privacy have been altered a bit," he says. "You're going to have to give a little bit to get some back."

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