never trust a photocopier

Unless this Wells guy wants to tell us how after-the-accident records keep "people less injured and alive" I'm thinking he's blowing smoke up our collective patoot.

Black boxes are connected (in some cases) to the systems that let the car know that you haven't done your seatbelt up - seatbelts save lives, there's tons of evidence of that - and if an extra ping ping ping saves your life, I'll be glad.

Evidence from the black boxes of who was/wasn't using a seatbelt in an accident has been used to prove that seatbelts have worked.

Again, brake failure info can be pulled from black boxes and can lead to recalls that can save lives.

There is a lot of useful info in those black boxes.

The acceleration/deacceleration/direction of travel/area of impact information can be helpful in determining cause of injury and in developing treatment/care plans.

If anyone is interested there are many scientific journals full of studies about them. Google is your friend.

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Of course some black box information can be used to investigate fraud but it's not my experience that fraud investigation is the primary use of black box information.

In the same way that black box recorders improve airline safety. Having the facts after an accident can help determine cause and direct efforts to improving the safety systems in cars in the future. True, they don't help much for the specific accident. What's the problem with having some facts ?

Now, if unscrupulous people get the data and use it for bad purposes, that is a problem, but don't blame the data, or the messenger, the black box.

However, in a public conveyance like the airlines...it's essential to have technology that protects that public. In a car, I feel that it's quite a different dynamic or manner to protect your rights. There's that pesky 5th amendment right to prevent self-incrimination that a potential black box info might deliver.

I don't want to argue about that implication there. However, insurance companies will most likely use that gathered data to keep their exposure to risk and loss of profit. Car mfrs probable motivation is that they want those boxes there for public safety and protect themselves from lawsuits due to failure of their equip't due to poor engineering etc.

Recognizing that there's a different dynamic of a public carrier and a private party driving their own car. This difference is arguable.

Yes, I would agree. That's why I included the 'unscrupulous' comment. I am torn about the part about insurance companies using them to monitor our driving. I can certainly see their motivation, but not in my car. We pay a high price for that freedom to express ourselves in our cars, killing thousands of innocent people.

interestingly (? perhaps), a number of manufacturers retain ownership of the black box even when it's in a car you've bought

Given the cost of accessing the information means that insurers don't ask manufacturers to pull the boxes very often. It's pretty rare unless someone's dead.

Is there an implication that we are missing statistics showing that seat belts save lives, even without black boxes?

I just got a chance to watch the video. Certainly disturbing. The copier mfgs should make them automatically delete the images after print.