What is blackbox in Cars?

What is black box in Cars?

Aside from GPS, dashcams, and reverse cams installed in cars for recorded footages when emergency happens, blackboxes were also underrated device as a mean of tracking or recording one's car status and keep a proof of what had transpired with the car installed with black box. 

Black boxes were originally used and installed in airplanes and other form of aircrafts for status tracking and cite problems if there is an error indicated by blackbox. In around 2000s, innovators have realized that automobiles would need blackboxes as most accidents and mechanical errors happen on land vehicles, so manufacturers have expanded applicability of blackboxes to cars and is evidently present on most cars. According to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), 96% of total sold cars in U.S. had black boxes installed along with 150 million older vehicles, as in 2014, it has became a law to require every new vehicle to have an installed black box. 

More information about Black Box

Black box standard placement is located behind a car seat, may it be front seat, driver's seat and sometimes it is placed in the middle of the console of a vehicle. Black boxes record aside from non deployment (road accidents that doesn't require air bags to inflate) and deployment event (severe accidents that is detectable enough by air bags to inflate), it also features to collect and record these following data: 

• Travel Speed
• Braking activity
• Airbag reaction time (deployment time)
• General behavior of Steering 
• Activity of Seatbelt
• Vehicle weight distribution

Black Boxes & Crash Liability

Similar to dashcams and surveillance camera footages, black boxes even provide higher and more detailed information how the accident went and what were the status of the driver for the police investigators. Though, it depends on what state you are in as they have different law regarding usage of black box and its installation inside a car and may require police and attorneys to ask for consent from the owner of the car to investigate its black box data but it can also be accessed via court order when necessary. 

Information provided by the black box is essental and increases your chances of approval and even success when filing an injury claim against the driver at fault as professional investigator can utilize data stored in the black box to convert it in to a strong form of evidence.

Ryan LLP is an Ohio based injury law firm that specializes in concern of wrongful death, personal injury and medical malpractice claims by their clients. We have a long standing of success from our 40 years of experience in professionally representing victim's claim against insurers of individuals and even large agencies. Call our office now for free legal consultation.