Automotive Black Box

There are a lot of old jokes about programs to put a cockpit recorder and flight data recorder system (the notorious “black box”) similar to the ones used in commercial airliners into cars – usually with a punch line on the order of “Hold my beer and watch this!” There’s never been a serious attempt to legislate such a system, however, because there would be a huge cost to the consumer and a huge invasion of privacy to anyone who rode in such vehicles – thus, everyone, liberal and conservative, can find something to hate about the idea. Even more to the point, perhaps, is the issue of what (other than gathering empirical data) would be the purpose of such devices. Most people are convinced that they are excellent drivers (regardless of the facts of the matter), and they’re not going to listen to a box that tells them they’re not. So, while the technology has been around for some time, there’s never been a practical application for it. At least, until now…

A story being reported in an Detroit Free Press details how a “black box” system, which monitors the vehicle’s location as well as operations, is being tested on teen drivers by the an The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety . The basic idea is that parents can use the system to monitor where their teenager is driving, how fast they were going, rapid accelerations/decelerations, violent turns, and even if they were wearing their seatbelts. Initial tests indicate that teenage drivers are more cautious when they know the car they’re driving will be finking on them to their parents in real time, and as a result, they’re having fewer accidents. It’s a good idea, as far as it goes, but I think the people behind the program may be a bit naïve if they think these systems are ever going to be more than a means for parents to check up on their children…

Granted that some percentage of new drivers are going to appreciate the opportunity to learn how to become more proficient behind the wheel (the “mentoring” aspect mentioned in the Free Press article), it’s hard to imagine the average teenager actually liking this idea. In fact, a lot of them are going to see it as nothing more than a way for their parents to keep tabs on them, monitor their every move, and so on. Unless the systems are very well hidden and extremely hard to tamper with, I would expect jamming, spoofing and hacking to become vastly popular new teenage hobbies; I also expect that a number of particularly contrarian teens will start looking for ways to mess with the system – and with the parents attempting to look over their shoulders…

More to the point, perhaps, parental control methods are problematic once a child turns 18, and if they are self-supporting (and own their own cars) there’s not going to be much their parents can do to require safe driving, black box or no black box – and traffic accidents remain the number one cause of death in White males until the age of 29 (with other demographics not far behind). Nor will these systems do anything about rebellious teens who are going to drive the way the please, parental informants or no, who then do something aggressive and stupid and die anyway…

For all that the idea has some merits, in the long run it’s going to end up being just another attempt to legislate good behavior, and it’s going to fail in the same ways that these measures always do. The cost of these “black box” systems will make them an option on new cars, serious-minded and responsible people will buy then while everybody else passes to save a few bucks, and the serious-minded and responsible teenage drivers will use them as intended – and have a much better change of living to have young drivers of their own. Meanwhile, the remaining 97% of the population will either not have the recorders installed, or else use them to watch their sullen, rebellious teens defy their authority by driving straight into a stationary object…