Bill seeks to inform drivers of black box in vehicles
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HARRISBURG -- One of the items sought by investigators looking into the crash that killed a father and two of his triplets earlier this month is a small flat device similar to "black box" flight data recorders on planes.
airbagcrash.comPulling back the carpeting in a 2001 Cadillac DeVille exposes the black box.
Click photo for larger image.
Many new cars are equipped with an event data recorder, or EDR, a small box containing a microchip that records automobile-related data covering the last five seconds before an auto accident. It can help investigators learn how an accident occurred.
But some are concerned about the use of the boxes in lawsuits and say that they constitute an unwarranted intrusion on privacy rights.
Most car buyers don't even know their car has an EDR, because neither the dealer nor the owner's manual mentions it, said state Sen. J. Barry Stout, D-Washington, who along with other senators is trying to protect Pennsylvania car owners from what they see as the latest version of Big Brother.
He is a co-sponsor of a bill that would require car dealers to tell buyers about the existence of a black box and give the car owner greater control over release of the data on the recorder in case of an accident.
"The public doesn't want someone to spy on them or to snoop on them," said Mr. Stout. "Drivers should have a right to privacy. It's a consumer-protection issue."
Without such a law, Mr. Stout said, the EDR information could be used against a driver if he is sued by the other driver in a car crash.
The original idea behind the EDRs was to let federal officials gather data on whether air bags were deploying properly in accidents, and at what speeds the air bags were most effective at protecting drivers and passengers, said Craig Shuey, director of the Senate Transportation Committee.
They quickly became a tool for accident investigators.
The Northern Regional Police Department has executed a search warrant of the 2002 Honda Odyssey minivan involved in the April 13 fatal crash on state Route 8 in Richland for "any electronic recording of vehicle information of the crash."
In that accident, a wood chipper broke loose from a truck and struck the driver's side of the minivan, which Spencer Morrison was driving in the opposite direction. Mr. Morrison, 37, of Cranberry, was killed along with two of his 4-year-old triplets, Alaina and Garret. The third child, Ethan, remains in critical but stable condition at Children's Hospital.
Allegheny County homicide Detective Michael Peairs, who is an accident reconstructionist, said information from event data recorders can be useful, especially in cases when poor weather conditions such as rain or snow quickly erase physical evidence.
"It seems like more and more we try to get that information," said Detective Peairs, who estimated he handled about 30 fatal and near-fatal crash reconstructions a year.
Some data recorders contain only basic information, such as whether the air bags deployed and seat belts were in use. Others are more sophisticated and include data on the car's speed in the final five seconds before a crash, the car's direction, whether the driver was wearing a seat belt, whether the air bags deployed quickly and properly, whether the driver was stepping on the accelerator or the brake when the crash occurred, and whether the steering wheel had been turned in a certain direction just before impact.
Several lawmakers, including Sens. Stout, Roger Madigan, R-Bradford, and Jane Orie, R-McCandless, said they had only recently become aware of the existence of EDRs and problems associated with them.
With the black boxes, Ms. Orie, a former Allegheny County prosecutor, said, "we are opening a door we've never opened before. I don't think the public at large is even aware these [EDRs] exist in a vehicle."
The EDR information "could be used in 'discovery'," she said, in a legal process in which a lawyer for one driver involved in an accident demands to see the EDR information from the other car, in order to shift the blame to the other driver.
As a result, Mr. Madigan, Republican chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee, and Mr. Stout, his Democratic counterpart, have proposed Senate Bill 1050.
It has two main provisions: A car buyer would have to be notified by the dealer, at the time of purchase, that there is an EDR in the vehicle. Also, the owner's manual for the new vehicle would have to list an EDR as part of the equipment and state what it records.
Mr. Stout said the bill would also make it clear that the owner of a car has the authority to either release -- or not release -- the information contained on the black box.
If the lawyer for another driver involved in an accident wanted to get that information, the lawyer would have to ask a judge for a court order to release it.
First Published April 27, 2006 12:00 am
