Government to mandate “black boxes” on passenger vehicles?

posted at 11:06 am on April 19, 2012 by Ed Morrissey

Bruce McQuain at QandO picks up on an effort in the Senate to make cars even more expensive than ever.  The MAP-21 bill is already notorious for giving the IRS the power to confiscate passports on suspicion of tax evasion without getting a judge involved or a suspect a chance to defend himself, and its presence as part of the transportation bill makes it a little easier to pass unnoticed through the House.  Another section of MAP-21 would impose a mandate, starting in 2015, to equip every passenger vehicle sold in the US with a “black box” event data recording system:

SEC. 31406. VEHICLE EVENT DATA RECORDERS.

(a) Mandatory Event Data Recorders-

(1) IN GENERAL- Not later than 180 days after the date of enactment of this Act, the Secretary shall revise part 563 of title 49, Code of Federal Regulations, to require, beginning with model year 2015, that new passenger motor vehicles sold in the United States be equipped with an event data recorder that meets the requirements under that part.

(2) PENALTY- The violation of any provision under part 563 of title 49, Code of Federal Regulations–

(A) shall be deemed to be a violation of section 30112 of title 49, United States Code;

(B) shall be subject to civil penalties under section 30165(a) of that title; and

(C) shall not subject a manufacturer (as defined in section 30102(a)(5) of that title) to the requirements under section 30120 of that title.

Title 49, section 563 relates the requirements for ground-transportation EDRs if added to a vehicle by a manufacturer.  It doesn’t require vehicles to include one — or it doesn’t at the moment.  S.1813 would change that to make it a requirement.

In other words, this will be similar to the black-box requirements for airplanes, used to reconstruct events after a crash or other incidents.  There are a lot of auto accidents in the US, but unlike with commercial aircraft, they don’t usually fall 30,000 feet.  The federal government mandated black boxes on aircraft because so little evidence otherwise survives a catastrophic crash, an outcome that’s rare among traffic accidents involving cars.

Besides that, the federal government has jurisdiction over aviation; they don’t over normal traffic.  If states saw a need for this requirement, they could impose it themselves.  California, for instance, has specific and unique requirements for emission systems in vehicles sold in the state, and automakers adapted by selling California-specific versions of their models.

The next question is who gets access to the data, and that’s a little murky.  The proposal states that the owner of the vehicle owns the data as well, but with some exceptions:

(b) Limitations on Information Retrieval-

(1) OWNERSHIP OF DATA- Any data in an event data recorder required under part 563 of title 49, Code of Federal Regulations, regardless of when the passenger motor vehicle in which it is installed was manufactured, is the property of the owner, or in the case of a leased vehicle, the lessee of the passenger motor vehicle in which the data recorder is installed.

(2) PRIVACY- Data recorded or transmitted by such a data recorder may not be retrieved by a person other than the owner or lessee of the motor vehicle in which the recorder is installed unless–

(A) a court authorizes retrieval of the information in furtherance of a legal proceeding;

(B) the owner or lessee consents to the retrieval of the information for any purpose, including the purpose of diagnosing, servicing, or repairing the motor vehicle;

(C) the information is retrieved pursuant to an investigation or inspection authorized under section 1131(a) or 30166 of title 49, United States Code, and the personally identifiable information of the owner, lessee, or driver of the vehicle and the vehicle identification number is not disclosed in connection with the retrieved information; or

(D) the information is retrieved for the purpose of determining the need for, or facilitating, emergency medical response in response to a motor vehicle crash.

In other words, the vehicle owner retains the data, until (a) a court or (c) and (d) government decides he doesn’t.  Speaking of which, what exactly does (d) mean?  I suppose this is based on the OnStar system, which relays GPS coordinates to a call center when airbags deploy, but that is a private transaction between the owner and the service.  This is supposedly a mandate for event-data recorders, not for transmitters and ongoing two-way communications.  What would a black box have to do with emergency response if all they do is record?  How much surveillance would these EDRs allow, anyway?

I suspect that this is an effort by the Senate to plow the road for a mileage tax.  With gasoline tax revenues expected to drop with the advent of electric and hybrid vehicles (a large assumption, by the way), Democrats have been looking for ways to recoup the lost revenue.  They have repeatedly discussed and occasionally proposed instituting a mileage tax, which would either force drivers to keep extensive records of their travel or to add a device that calculates mileage and transmits it to the government.  Forcing manufacturers to include EDRs would give future Congresses the device necessary for this step; all it would take would be a future modification to Title 49, part 563 to require mileage collection.  There doesn’t appear to be any other pressing reason to add EDRs to the family car.

Addendum: Some cars already include EDRs or their rough equivalents (and have to comply with the existing Title 49 part 563 when they do).  No one is arguing that manufacturers should be barred from adding them, but this should be a choice for manufacturers and buyers, not a mandate.


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Comment pages: 1 2

Been to many TEA party rallies, have you? Or are you merely engaging in rectal speak?

As usual…

JohnGalt23 on May 24, 2013 at 1:46 PM

As I just posted HotairLib has their whole head up their six o clock.

hamradio on May 24, 2013 at 2:43 PM

Who wrote the speech? Or are you just praising the messenger?

mixplix on May 24, 2013 at 2:57 PM

MSNBC consensus: Obama’s speech was historic, amazing, “one of the best of his presidency”

Connect the dots: journolist meeting by invitation only at the White House on, what Tuesday?, “big”speech by Obama on Thursday, lame stream media fawning over speech on Friday. Who would have seen that coming, huh?

parke on May 24, 2013 at 2:58 PM

They need the “war on terror” in order to further erode our Constitutional freedoms and to deflect criticism from the administration’s and Federal government’s ongoing corruption.

They are just trying to massage it so that they don’t offend the Muslims, international Libtards and their own sensibilities anymore than necessary.

A few Muslim terrorists here and there are quite expendable to this Administration despite their sympathies for them. These drone attacks also do much deflect any potential criticism that the Administration is weak in dealing with such matters.

Dr. ZhivBlago on May 24, 2013 at 2:59 PM

MSNBC is nothing but a left wing propaganda machine serving their master, Obama.

rplat on May 24, 2013 at 3:07 PM

Nobel Peace Prize that he totally earned a mere nine months into his presidency? Yeah, that one.

I believe that he was officially nominated 10 days after he was sworn in. Wow! The WON really worked long hours that week and a half to earn that POS medal. During those ten days he ordered NO DRONE STRIKES to keep his peaceful record clean.

fred5678 on May 24, 2013 at 3:22 PM

Obama: Don’t worry about that Ben Ghazi guy. I killed Bin Laden, and Bush didn’t!

And Obummer still wants to close Gitmo? Good luck with that–not even Upchuck Schumer was willing to hold trials in New York!

Steve Z on May 24, 2013 at 3:24 PM

They need the “war on terror” in order to further erode our Constitutional freedoms and to deflect criticism from the administration’s and Federal government’s ongoing corruption.

They just changed the definition of terrorist. They used to be jihadis from the Middle East–now they’re Minutemen in Arizona and Tea Partiers in Ohio.

Steve Z on May 24, 2013 at 3:29 PM

…bromides about what we’re told are President Foreign Policy’s miraculous yet still oddly unmaterialized abilities to move us drastically closer to world peace.

Erika, sometimes your writing shows signs of rivaling even the Master of Snark himself, Allahpundit. Good work!

KS Rex on May 24, 2013 at 3:45 PM

I love how crazy Al invoked the Nobel Peace Prize in praise of a speech that spoke about dropping bombs on people’s head. Maybe it was the “fewer” bombs than before that raised this to historic levels.

Do they even know or care that they are morons.

marnes on May 24, 2013 at 3:46 PM

His speech made less sense than Bluto’s Animal House Speech and was far less entertaining. Nothing less than base rallying time. Never thought I would say this, but Code Pink was the best part.

DDay on May 24, 2013 at 4:01 PM

Sperling posted this at the Examiner on May 23 about this “historic speech of Obysmal’s:

During his foreign policy speech Thursday afternoon, President Obama warned that domestic terrorism would increase in the modern age of the Internet.

“[T]his threat is not new,” Obama said. “But technology and the Internet increase its frequency and lethality.”

Obama warned Americans that materials on the Internet could influence people to commit terrorist acts.

“Today, a person can consume hateful propaganda, commit themselves to a violent agenda and learn how to kill without leaving their home,” he said.

To combat domestic terrorism, Obama reminded Americans that it was important to reach out to Muslim communities.

“The best way to prevent violent extremism is to work with the Muslim American community — which has consistently rejected terrorism — to identify signs of radicalization and partner with law enforcement when an individual is drifting towards violence,” he said. “And these partnerships can only work when we recognize that Muslims are a fundamental part of the American family.”

You see, we are just not working hard enough to “work with the Muslim American community” who are a “fundamental part of the American family.” Watch out, too, because Obysmal is again trying to limit the impact of the Internet.

onlineanalyst on May 24, 2013 at 4:22 PM

That Chris Hayes is a bit of a twink, isn’t he?

onlineanalyst on May 24, 2013 at 4:25 PM

Obama apparently gave two speeches yesterday and I watched the other one.

myiq2xu on May 24, 2013 at 5:03 PM

Comment pages: 1 2