Texas Truck Wreck Attorney Blog

The majority of newer cars in the U.S. today have event recorders or event data recorders also known as black boxes.

Given the Toyota unintended acceleration publicity recently, the issue of black boxes is coming in to better focus. The event recorders were originally developed to deal with aircraft accidents, and later adapted to monitor air bags in automobiles.

Not all cars or trucks have event data recorders, and some but not all manufacturers have taken great lengths to insure that the event data is not recoverable by anyone other than the manufacturer.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration developed a rule requiring that if an event data recorder is part of the car, or pickup truck that specific information needs to be collected. However that rule does not go into effect for several years and does not require any vehicle have a black box.

In auto accidents and truck wrecks event data provides very useful information when it is accessible by authorities or by accident lawyers where on the plaintiff side or the defense.

Many accident reconstructionists have the ability to download event data on many newer cards and trucks. It is particularly helpful as many times a car accident happens unexpectedly, in a matter of split seconds and it is sometimes difficult for the injury victim to recall or relate accurately exactly what happened in the crash.