How car black boxes work

The European Union's rules for the year 2022 have been quite specific when it comes to cars. In addition to the speed limiter, a black box will also be compulsory on new cars, which is a very controversial measure, in the case of the latter due to the data collected.

The operation of the black box in cars will be very similar to that in airplanes, except that in this case there will be no recording of conversations in the cabin. The aim will be to prevent road accidents by allowing a reconstruction in the event of an accident, thus making it easier to determine who is responsible.

The forensic services used today will no longer make sense, because with this functionality you will be able to know how fast the car was going, whether there was acceleration or braking and even whether all the passengers were wearing their seatbelts. This information is extremely important, not only in the process of establishing liability, but also in improving car safety systems.

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The black box in cars will record telemetry data such as:

• The pressure on the accelerator or the engine revs;

• The steering angle and angular velocity in degrees;

• Speed in the last 5 seconds;

• The use of the brakes;

• The direction of the Delta V (positive or negative acceleration);

• Activation of airbags and belt pretensioners;

• The use of seat belts and the size of the occupants;

• The variation in speed to which the vehicle was subjected after the impact;

• The longitudinal acceleration in meters per second squared.

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All cars manufactured from July 2022 will be required to have this system which, to ensure data protection, will only be used in the event of an accident.

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Source: ACP

Translated with DeepL.com