All New Vehicles in Spain Will Be Required to Have a 'Black Box ' Fitted
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While browsing the world news online i came across this article about new vehicles in Spain
It is saying that from July 2024 all new vehicles manufactured will be required to have a black box or EDR (Event Data Recorder) installed for safety purposes and to potentially reduce accidents
This is similar to the black boxes in aircraft but a smaller version
It says It records data 30 seconds before an accident and five seconds after, recording things like speed, airbag performance, and the intensity of impacts.
They say it will not record audio or visuals, only concentrating on technical data to understand accident dynamics better
In one way i think it is a good thing if it can help reduce accidents, and would be the holy grail for insurance companies
But then some might consider it intrusive , another invasion of peoples privacy, more of Big Brother
One thing amazes me about the box, they say it will record data 30 seconds before an accident, that is some impressive hardware than can predict the future !!
What do you think about this and would you welcome it in vehicles here in the UK ?
euroweeklynews.com/2024/03/07/dgts-black-box-requirement-from-july/
I think this is a good idea and surprised it hasn’t happened before now really. Just wonder if this will push up the price of cars over there.
Too much like Big Brother to me. We don’t understand the technology and won’t really know what it’s recording. Like these Alexia’s always listening.
Gromit22 I agree G, but unfortunately it's the way the world is now
Another advantage would be if your car was stolen, the box would track your vehicle like a GPS , in fact more efficiently and i expect because it is integrated into the electrics the thieves wouldn't be able to remove it so easily if not at all and by that time it would be detected abd recovered , hopefully 
telmel Given they can open a car by remotely hacking modern cars those black boxes will just be a challenge for them to know how to turn 'em off.
For genuine owners, if they make that info public on how to then it's great.
Don't know if you know who Louis Rossman is or Steve Lehto, but they'll surely blast the crap out of this thing if they already haven't. Checked and they haven't.
The 30 seconds before an accident bit just means its recording data all the time but can only store the last 30 seconds, a bit like security cameras that might only have the ability to record for one week or one day before they start erasing the older recordings to make space for new recordings.
This will add costs to cars although not sure how much. I guess some cars might be better set up to do this than others. Feels like a form of import restriction if not all car brands can do this quickly. Also if its reading data from various components around the car then those components also have to have the ability to send such data, this is more to go wrong and presumably if this is regarded as important safety data will need to be checked when you get an MOT or whatever it is called in Spain. That is additional costs again. If a component is working fine except it isn't sending the correct data will it need to be replaced? I'm guessing it will need replacing despite working fine for normal use.
I understand the need for safety of course but by making cars more and more complex is actually making them shorter life products. For example engines having to get to greater levels of efficiency with less pollution means those engines are getting more complex and having higher failure rates which means cars get scrapped earlier which is the opposite of what we want with global warming. There is a Ford engine might be a ecoboost not sure that has a horrific failure rate compared to earlier Ford engines, absolutely terrible product.
We need simpler more reliable cars that can last 10 years or more without problems and without needing complex time consuming repairs. Mechanical dials have long term reliability where as electronic LCD touchscreen displays do not. Just when we need long term reliable products i.e. simple small cars instead we have oversized SUVs with complex electronics that lead to early failure and scrapping.
BonzoBanana I agree with most you say B, and for that reason i am clinging onto my old jalopy for as long as i can , i look after it and despite being old it looks good and runs well
The only problem is the government forcing us to scrap them to buy an EV, that at the moment is out of a lot of peoples price range ,besides the additional costs for insurance and charging we are now realising
And buying a second hand EV is another problem , who wants one with a more limited battery life than when new when some new EVs already have poor travelling ranges
Maybe in another few years when the price comes down and more efficient and smaller batteries are installed, as they are starting to look to produce soon then i might consider purchasing one , meanwhile i am quite happy with the one i have
telmel The government's push for EVs is not I think pro-environment. EV's have an inherent safety issue that they cause fires that are incredibly hard to extinguish and can ignite at random times. When cargo ships sink due to random EV fires onboard they release toxic lithium into the oceans and even when they don't sink lithium can be dispersed through the flames. Two ships containing German made EVs have been hugely damaged or sunk. There may be more I would have expected to have seen more issues with Chinese made EV's to be honest. How is this environmentally friendly, even if standard ICE cars catch fire it rarely happens when they are parked doing nothing and such fires are much easier to extinguish. Who wants to park their car on the road next to an EV at night only to come out in the morning to find out their car is burnt out because the EV caught fire next to it.
Also at the moment the vile scum we have on the streets haven't realised about the dangers of EVs but once there are more EVs on the roads they only have to insert a metal rod in the right place to see a huge EV fireworks display. Also when an EV hits an ICE car the EV is much more likely to burst into intense flames causing a horrific death for their occupants which the fire services will struggle to put out. Many more people are going to die in EV collisions. Petrol tanks are in the rear of the vehicle but batteries are normally below the chassis, they can be damaged through the chassis bending or objects on the road. Just seems like a rubbish option to me, there are newer safer batteries coming which are strangely salt based and Toyota has ammonia engines which produce safe emissions as well as being much safer cars in general. This is early days of EVs and the current EV's have lots of safety issues.
www.cbsnews.com/news/cargo-ship-luxury-cars-sinks-atlantic-ocean-portugal/
BonzoBanana Yes i posted myself about the car park fires and the ones at sea and yes, that is another grave problem that needs sorting out before people are bamboozled into buying one
I personally thing the government has pushed too hard and too early to get people to change over to one and not enough research has gone into safety
How can they not have realised that the additional weight of the EVs is going to cause older multi story car parks to collapse under their weight, and further damage the roads ??
And more shocking is not enough research in the safety of the batteries which as you rightly point out are an enormous fire hazard , especially in a collision
Never mind all the additional costs i previously mentioned , insurances over charging and possible additional taxes that might be 'invented' to make up for tax lost on oil revenue
The motorist is already being hammered on the road with green taxes and the likes of Ulez , and i fail to believe they will abolish these types of taxes when everyone is driving electric , you will have no choice but to pay them then , the charging stations are already holding people to ransom with their extortionate charges , if you will excuse the pun, it will only get worse , mark my words
telmel Personally I'd like all tax put on fuel for ICE vehicles as I'm a low mileage driver and vehicle tax unfairly penalises me compared to people who drive huge miles same as car insurance. Someone who drives 2000 miles a year should pay a fifth of someone who drives 10,000 miles. Where is the financial motivation to drive less in the insurance and road tax rates? Lots of people don't even insure and tax their vehicles nowadays as well but they would be forced to pay tax at least if it was on fuel. It would then be pay as you go.
That's an invasion of privacy and understandably if its owners will try to hack and have it disabled.
No different than the warm seats that require a subscription. Just bizarre what they're trying to turn cars into.
I think it's a good idea, I'm thinking of getting tried of our car, my insurance is going up £600+, I've never had an accident or a claim in 30 years, ridiculous
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