Angel Eyes
03-21-2013, 02:07 PM
http://s10.postimg.org/izwu92wwp/blackbox1_79813578514c6280d848a6c7129a58ea4cd173.j pg
Detective Dave Wells plugs his laptop into a car's event data recorder. A large portion of new cars are equipped with the device, and the government is considering making them mandatory in all vehicles. But some say there should be an "off" option
If you're a vehicle owner and happen to have a car accident in the near future (we hope you don't), it's likely the crash details will be recorded. Automotive "black boxes" are now built into more than 90 percent of new cars, and the government is considering making them mandatory.
Dave Wells, a detective at the King County Sheriff's Office in Washington state, specializes in accident reconstruction.
That means he's often crouched under steering wheels, looking for the connector that mechanics use to get diagnostic codes. But Wells is using a different kind of tool, and it pulls out a very different kind of information.
Reading a sampling off his laptop, he says, "In the first 10 milliseconds they're up to a half-mile-per-hour acceleration."
This is crash data — moment-by-moment statistics saved from the car's most recent collision. There's speed, acceleration, braking — even information from inside the car.
"There are sensors under your seat," he explains. "So if someone tried to say there was another person in the car at a crash who had run away, this shows at the time of collision there was not."
Detective Dave Wells plugs his laptop into a car's event data recorder. A large portion of new cars are equipped with the device, and the government is considering making them mandatory in all vehicles. But some say there should be an "off" option
If you're a vehicle owner and happen to have a car accident in the near future (we hope you don't), it's likely the crash details will be recorded. Automotive "black boxes" are now built into more than 90 percent of new cars, and the government is considering making them mandatory.
Dave Wells, a detective at the King County Sheriff's Office in Washington state, specializes in accident reconstruction.
That means he's often crouched under steering wheels, looking for the connector that mechanics use to get diagnostic codes. But Wells is using a different kind of tool, and it pulls out a very different kind of information.
Reading a sampling off his laptop, he says, "In the first 10 milliseconds they're up to a half-mile-per-hour acceleration."
This is crash data — moment-by-moment statistics saved from the car's most recent collision. There's speed, acceleration, braking — even information from inside the car.
"There are sensors under your seat," he explains. "So if someone tried to say there was another person in the car at a crash who had run away, this shows at the time of collision there was not."