Cheaper Car Insurance with Automotive Black Boxes

By: Liz Taylor, Car Insurance Analyst
CheaperCarInsurance.com

We all know about the black box that every plane carries. When a plane goes down, the black box, an event recorder, can provide clues as to what went wrong. It’s an invaluable tool that could also help give people cheaper car insurance. Jackie Speier recently introduced a new act that would require all new cars to include an event recorder by 2012.

The Consumer Auto Safety Enhancement Act of 2010 would not only require that all vehicles carry these devices, but would also require existing vehicles with the technology to be updated. That’s because there are already cars available that have the automotive version of the black box. The main problem faced is that there are no industry standards. This act would require standardization of the regulation and strict adherence to the safety guidelines.

The idea for the act came about after it was revealed that Toyota had event recorders in their vehicles and refused to share vital information. The car company claimed the accidents were human error, failing to share black box info on whether the brake or gas pedals were being depressed.

How Would Black Boxes Help?

In many car accidents, it’s just not readily apparent what went on. It takes hours of searching for potential problems and in cases where the vehicle caught fire, it can be impossible to determine the exact cause of the crash. There are so many different reasons a vehicle could crash and sometimes it isn’t even possible to narrow it down to mechanical failure or human error.

Being able to see the last few minutes before a crash could change the way accidents are handled. There would be more information resulting in:

• Faster investigations, which would save millions of dollars
• More accurate vehicle recalls
• Faster sentencing in cases where a person was involved
• Closure for families who have lost loved ones

Just making sure that recalls were made in cases where the vehicle had an inherent malfunction would be worth the effort of putting recorders into new cars. While there would be an initial cost in building better recorders and enforcing the quality standards, this is something that would change the way we handle accidents.

Cheaper Car Insurance Would be the Result

Everyone could use cheaper car insurance. However, due to the cost involved in investigating fake claims and even the amount of time it takes to figure out what the cause of an accident was, rates continue to rise.

Imagine if the insurance company could see in moments whether or not the accident was deliberate? This would reduce the time spent investigating potential fraud drastically. It would also:

• Reduce the amount of time until a payout
• Eliminate deliberate crashes
• Help determine if the driver was under the influence

If black boxes are implemented into vehicle production, which seems to be a wise choice, we can enjoy cheaper car insurance and more accurate depictions of what goes on in an accident. This, in turn, could help families who lose loved ones in accidents and would prevent mechanical flaws from killing more people.

Posted: May 24, 2010