Personal Budget Training: Balck Box Technology Convicts

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Balck Box Technology Convicts

The heir to a $260 million fortune is facing jail after leaving a baby paralysed in a car crash. See the auto technology used to prove his dangerous driving.

Antonio Singh, 21, was speeding over 70mph and overtaking another car on a 30mph road when he crashed into the car carrying two-year-old Cerys Edwards. The child will need 24-hour care for the rest of her life.

The case was the first in the UK to use evidence from a black box recorder, which helped to estimate Singh's speed in the Range Rover at the time of impact and ultimately helped to convict him of dangerous driving in Birmingham, England. His sentencing will happen late this month.

The Event Data Recorder can record a car's speed and deceleration and other information such as the pressure on a brake pedal at the time of a crash.

Car manufacturers began installing them in vehicles in the 1990s to test early airbag performance, often wrongly deployed in cars being driven over bumps.

Data provided by the recorders has been used in the U.S. and Canada for the last ten years to investigate crashes and, in a few cases, aid court proceedings.

Experts predict such evidence will become an increasingly more common in British courts.

Labels: news, technology