AUTONEWS

Black box from June on European cars

The eternal discussions about the speed at which a particular vehicle was traveling before the accident, or whether it braked and for how many meters, will become part of history, since, from June onwards, all new vehicles sold in Europe will be equipped with with a “black box”, similar to the one equipped on commercial planes, designed to identify what caused the accident and, ideally, how to avoid it in the future.

Called Event Data Recorder (EDR), this equipment will be mandatory in light vehicles, whether commercial or passenger, with gross weights of less than 3500 kg. The EDR will not only facilitate the attribution of responsibilities between the various parties involved in accidents, but it should also prevent drivers from deceiving the authorities by making false statements to the police to avoid possible fines or liability.

After, in 2018, requiring the installation of eCall, a device that allows automatically calling for help or medical assistance in the event of a serious accident, also providing the precise location of the vehicle, European authorities now “copy” the “black boxes” that are common in large commercial aircraft since the 1960s. The EDR records a series of parameters in a continuous cycle, storing only the 5 seconds before the crash and the 0.3 seconds after the accident, saving information relating to speed, braking, position and inclination of the vehicle in relation to the road, data that authorities then have access to.

The EDR cannot be turned off and is automatically activated whenever the seat belt pretensioners are activated, which happens when a stronger deceleration is detected. Also the raising of the front bonnet – which takes place when the vehicle system predicts an imminent collision with pedestrians, cyclists or animals –, or the recording of lateral or longitudinal speed variations, exceeding 8 km/h for less than 0.15 seconds, activate the “black box”.

Interestingly, according to the North American National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), 99.5% of cars in circulation in the USA are equipped with EDR (mandatory since 2012), and the Americans have updated the specifications of their “black boxes” in 2022, to start recording 20 seconds before the accident, an improvement compared to the initial 5 seconds.

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