Big brother will be watching you for sure by 2008 — the year a
proposed requirement that Event Data Recorders (EDRs) become
mandatory standard equipment in all new cars and trucks will become
law unless public outrage puts the kibosh on it somehow.
EDRs are “black boxes” — just like airplanes have. They can
record a wide variety of things, including how fast you drive and
whether you “buckle-up for safety.” The National Highway Traffic
Safety Administration (NHTSA) wants EDRs to be installed in every
new vehicle beginning with model year 2008, on the theory that the
information will help crash investigators more accurately determine
the hows and whys of accidents.
But EDRs could, and likely will be, used for other purposes as
well.
Tied into GPS navigation computers, EDRs could give interested
parties — your local cash-hungry sheriff, for example — the
ability to take automated ticketing to the next level. Since the
data recorders can continuously monitor most of the operating
parameters of a vehicle as it travels — and the GPS unit can
precisely locate the vehicle in “real time,” wherever it happens to
be at any given moment — any and all incidents of “speeding” could
be immediately detected and a piece of paying paper issued to the
offender faster than he could tap the brake. That’s even if he knew
he was in the crosshairs, which of course he wouldn’t. Probably
they’ll just erect an electronic debiting system of some sort that
ties directly into your checking account, since the paperwork could
not keep up with the massive uptick in fines that would be
generated.
If you think this is just a dark-minded paranoiac vision, think
again. Rental car companies have already deployed a very similar
system of onboard electronic monitoring to identify customers who
dare to drive faster than the posted limit, and automatically tap
them with a “surcharge” for their scofflaw ways. While this
inventive form of “revenue enhancement” was challenged and
subsequently batted down by the courts, the technology continues to
be honed and quietly put into service.
Already, 15-20 percent of all the cars and trucks in service
have EDRs; most of these are General Motors vehicles. GM has been
installing “black boxes” in its new cars and trucks since about
1996 as part of the Supplemental Restraint (air bag) system. Within
a few years, as many as 90 percent of all new motor vehicles will
be equipped with EDRs, according to government estimates, whether
the requirement NHTSA is pushing actually becomes law or not.
The automakers are just as eager to keep tabs on us as the
government — in part to keep the shyster lawyers that have been so
successfully digging into their deep pockets at bay. EDRs would
provide irrefutable evidence of high-speed driving, for example, or
make it impossible for a person injured in a crash to deny he
wasn’t wearing a seat belt.
Insurance companies will launch “safety” campaigns urging that
“we use available technology” to identify “unsafe” drivers — and
who will be able to argue against that? Everyone knows that
speeding is against the law. So if you aren’t breaking the law,
what have you got to worry about?
It’s all for our own good.
But if you get edgy thinking about the government — and our
friends in corporate America — being able to monitor where we go
and how we go whenever they feel like checking in on us, take the
time to write a “Thanks, but no thanks” letter to NHTSA at dms.dot.gov.
The public comment period is open until August 2004.
