The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area General Truck Talk Another very good reason to drive a stovebolt....

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,132056,00.html

Here's the scary part of that article:

"We have a long history of using data recorders in other modes of transportation and found them extremely useful," Osterman told FOXNews.com, pointing to aircraft. " Unless we have all vehicles equipped, you will not have a true picture of what is happening on the highways, in a broader sense."

Actually, there has been a pilot project on the use of black boxes in cars for a couple of years and they have been getting some interesting data. They found that in most of the country, the last words on the voice recorder were usually, "Oh my God!" But in Kentucky, it was a different story. Right before the crash, most of the recordings said, "Hey Billy Bob, hold my beer and watch this!"

Between these black boxes and your car's GPS systems "big brother" will know exactly where you are and what you are doing. A bit scary for sure.

a few years ago, I had heard of a design being built in Europe (sweden? denmark? I dunno...) about how if your car went over the speed limit, the computer would cut the electrical power to your motor until it slowed back down to the proper speed. Kinda dangerous, IMO, but more big brother bullcookies

You're paranoid. These instruments exist for the safety of the people... :rolleyes:

[img]http://www.norcalspeedshop.com/_offsite_smilies/censored2.gif[/img] [img]http://www.norcalspeedshop.com/_offsite_smilies/censored2.gif[/img] [img]http://www.norcalspeedshop.com/_offsite_smilies/censored2.gif[/img]!!!

Got Cell Phone?

I'm with Norse--you boys are overreaching; think of the advantages--eliminates suits against auto manufacturers--needless tort actions--res ipsa loquitar is a thing of the past--you guyz forgotten who won the election---

The govt can stay the heck outta my car!! :mad:

Another thought...if there were so many advantages to having a black box, some entrepreneur would be producing and selling them aftermarket. Natural market forces would take care of getting them into the cars of people who wanted them, not the people who dont.

An aftermarket black box would be way too hard to incorperate into all the computers that run a car nowadays. Each car has like 10 different computers doing stuff.
Speaking of suits. Imagine you are in an accident that wasn't your fault but your black box shows you were exceeding the speedlimit. This would instantly make you liable for damages and injuries.

Nah. Might take a year or two but the aftermarket could figure it out given a healthy profit motive.

I have a black box in my 52.......something else to put my stuff in

But you would need like 100 different models to fit all the different car and engine configurations. And why would I want to buy this? I don't even want the manufacturer to install one for free.

I don't mind them being installed in new vehicles as long as I have a choice of whether to buy one or not. When the day comes that my vehicle is not street legal because it has no data recorder, or I am penalized in some way for not having one, this will no longer be "the land of the free".

In theory they are a good idea. In practice we seem to have a way of taking good ideas and using them for bad purposes. I recently read an article about GPS in cell phones. I recall a comment in that article that, when you drive by the mall your phone will start ringing with advertisements and coupons from the stores in the mall. That would P me O. It's an invasion of my privacy.

As far as letting the cops know where I am, I don't do anything they would care about anyway. Being a law abider, I wish there was a way of getting people to slow down to something close to the speed limit. It scares me sometimes to drive the speed limit on the interstate through this small city and watch the traffic in the rear view mirror parting like the red sea for Moses. It can be hard to change lanes when people are roaring up behind you 10 or 15 mph over the limit.

I don't favor policing so much as I do education. Get people to understand the reasons for rules, then police those who just don't care.

I really believe that someday we will have cars that do the driving for us and all human occupants will be passengers. That's the only way that we will be able to get traffic violations under control. I'm not looking forward to it. (Unless I'm such an old geezer that it's the only way I can get around.)

It depends on where you live and when you drive. Here we have big freeways to move lots of commuters. When I have my Acura in 5th gear at 70 it is doing like 2700 rpm and is almost lugging. When I am the only car on that 5 lane freeway it is hard to do 65. Though it is a heck of a lot better than the old 55 limit which was a joke.

Hell, on some stretches of road, if you're not going 20 mph over the limit, you're gonna get run over. Every time I go to Norwalk OH for the Olds meet, we take I80 over there, and if you're not going 75-80 mph, you'll get flattened by a semi. As an aside, at 70 mph, my car is exactly at 1600 RPM. Can anyone say highway cruiser?

Exactly. There's no demand for it, which is precisely why there shouldn't be one. Same reason the govt or ins companies or whoever shouldn't cram it down our throats...because we don't want it.

It should be installed in volunteers' cars for the sole purpose of studing car crashes, not to place fault or blame in an accident. What will they sneak into cars next, voice recorders or video? In a free country, we enter society at our own risk, and I accept this and will deal with the consiquences when and if something happens. If big brother wants to monitor the roads effectively, we all have to give up our rides and drive little black boxes so the information they get is even close to being relavent.
There's so much governmental intervention to benefit the human race, it's gonna kill us,
Scott

Well, the future is here and affordable. This black box can track location, shut off engine, show speed and much more. black box

The Brits, wacky guys they are, have legislation pending to make it mandatory for ALL cars and trucks that operate/register in the Metro London area (huge!) to be equipped with a device that will:

1) Track your speed. If you're speeding at all, the device slows your car to the speed limit. And issues you a ticket, automatically debiting your bank account for the amount of the fine. Hell, who needs a judge? And...

2) It will have the capability to disable your car, should the authorities decide you need a little more "help". And...

3) Automatically call a wrecker for your government-agency-disabled car. And debit your bank account automatically for the amount of the tow. And...

4) Send a member of the local constabulary to your location to take you in, if that's what the authorities decide necessary. Plus, you have to reclaim your car, so there's more money.

So, let's recap here...They shut your vehicle down, give you a ticket and tow while charging your account for both, and essentially convicting you of a crime soley by word of automated sensors, and without a judge or jury of your peers. Confiscate your car and possibly haul you off to jail in the process. And this is good, how???

On the average day in London, you are videotaped or photographed over 300 (yes, 300!) times every single day!!! This is good again, how???

I've never ordered airbags of any kind in my car, yet I'm stuck paying, on average, $400.00 for the "privledge" of having the darn things...Not only has the government stuck these things in my car, they've essentially told me who I can carry in my car, as well. The baby HAS to go in the back, or he can get KILLED by an airbag! Kids are recommended to ride in the back seat now, and you can bet soon, it'll be mandatory...Incremental regulation by fanatical bureaucrats, unaccountable to anybody and unchecked by Congress. Hell, who needs terrorists?

A lot of the big trucks already have GPS units in them that can track their every move.

As far as passenger vehicles are concerned.....Can you say "On Star"??

Shades of George Orwell's novel 1984. Local trucking company had a drunk run a stop sign and get killed by one of thier trucks. After reviewing the onboard recoder it was found truckdriver had exceeded the speedlimit by 2mph earlier in the day. Company paid drunks family damages because according to their calculations the truck would have been 1800 ft short of intersection when Drunk ran stop sign if truck driver hadn't exceeded the speed limit earlier.

Werner transportation being sued driver was in the rigth lane not speeding two cars collided one spun into trucks path was killed . Werner and it's driver are being sueed because the werner driver had sent a message via Qualcomm a little more than a minute earlier. So instead of being an innocent victim of some one else's stupidity Werner and driver are defendents in a multimillion dollar lawsuit thanks to black boxes. I'm firmly against any recording devices it's nobodys business where I'm going or where I.ve been.
Many GM vehicles are limited to 105 mph by their computers from the factory.

Govt controls your car, they control you. It's that simple.

So much our life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness depends on our vehicles, yet the govt wants to monitor and control every aspect of how we use them. It ain't right.

Some people see abortion or gun control as the primary areas our freedoms are being eroded, but I'm here to tell ya, it's the automobile.

Hmm, what if the defense could show that somewhere else in the day he drove below the speedlimit? Or he took a long nap?

Yeah but....

We're not talking about TOOL boxes!

After opening the link and seeing the word "politics" in big red letters, possibly rendering any discussion of trucks to something parenthetical, I am amused at the outpourring of opinionated comment.

Has someone made off with John? Is he still out rounding up the herd?

Truck driving is getting to be a joke here in the UK. At the start of my shift I have to fill in a tachometer disc with the vehicles current mileage, my full name, date and place where I start my duty. This then records the distance I travel, the speed I travel, when I take a break, when I work and when I rest. During this shift I am only allowed to drive for no more then four and a half hours before I must take a 45min rest. I am only alowed to drive for 9 hours a day and at most can only work a total of 15. My truck has a limiter fitted to it by law that will only let me do 56mph. On our freeways (motorways) heavy trucks have a speed limit of 60mph so in affect all trucks can go flat out. In reality trucks just bunch up and clog the road as, at these speeds hauling 40 tons you have to keep them going to get up the next hill and it can sometimes take 5, 6, 7 miles to overtake another truck.
On normal two way roads trucks are only alowed to run at 40mph while other traffic is lmited to 60. You can imagine the black looks you get from car drivers that leave it until the last moment to leave for work and you're holding him up.
The speed limiter still doesn't kick in until 56mph on these roads which makes the things a farce as a 40 ton truck running head on into on coming traffic at 56mph will kill where as the same truck on the motorway running the same way as the traffic flow only may kill.
If a car and a truck have a wreck, the tacho card is pulled right away and the police can see if the driver has been speeding, driving over his hours, not had the propper rest and all kinds of stuff that they can twist to convict the truck driver. The car driver has none of this. If, however a truck driver produces a tacho card in court to prove his innocents he is told that it cannot be used as evidence as it doesn't log the possition of the vehicle at any given time.
At the end of my shift I have to fill the card in with the place where my duty ends, the date, mieage and distence traveled. I have to keep the card with me for 6 working days and my employer must keep them for a further 12 months so that the police and Dept of transport can access them.
We are told if we do something wrong that we should know better as we are pro drivers yet are treated no better than children. Don't let your country become a Nanny state.

Andy

Tony M, don't know but it would seem that a minute or two of varying speeds should make no difference as the route times could be affected by any number of varibles such as a different sequence of lights or traffic volume. It would seem that the fact a drunk ran a stop sign when he should have not been under the wheel would have settled things . But our legal system(I do not say justice system)only sees gray not black and white. As to our stovebolts they harken to a time when honor and integrity were the norm not the exceptions,is this one of the reasons we prize them so greatly or just because they are fun.

I think we're closing the barn door a little late here. There already is a readable black box recorder in any new car. It is in the air bag controller. It can be read after the crash and the speed of the car at impact is recorded. They are admissible in court. there is a movement among insurance companies to increase thee memory capacity to record a longer timespan before the accident.

Where I live, we have frequent incidents involving dramatic crashes of SUVs. When the driver survives, they always say that they were doing a reasonable speed when "the SUV went off the road". They are never responsible! Personally I think that it is time to use existing technology to expose these jokers. They drive up our insurance rates and make the highways a more dangerous place to be.

Limey--

Welcome to the bolt. Interestin post--I expect what ur goin thru is our future--nanny goverment--everybody supervised and regulated--sad but seems inevitable--heck many here want to regulate who you can marry

Maybe he's out checking under the hoods of his fleet for any suspicious looking little black boxes....

JYF, et al

John should be around soon. He finally got the run-in shed done. The 14-year old who was helping drove the last nail in at 11:06 on Saturday. So, now it's 60 degrees! Go figure.

But ... he did get his profile updated! Got that in last night before lights out.

Peg

John, nice looking horse,,,think I will start checking profiles and turn those in that are without their pix...should be a requirement,,plus I need all the points that I can get

Joker

That would be a good idea. If you click on their profile and it says "your picture," I think it means they tried to post a picture and it didn't work. We had to try three times to get John's just right.

So, if you come across that, why don't you send them an email to let them know.

We hope to get an FAQ to help with that. Oh Norse ???

Peg

Buzz'n,
That's OK if everyone is 'looked after'. It's all wrong when only certain groups are made to follw a certain law.
Thanks for the welcome. Been here for a good while now but the computer went bang and I had to re-register on this new one, hense post number one. Been out of action for a while.

Andy

ya ya ya, but is black the only color or can ya get em in chrome??? lol