stumil

Just saw an interesting news video on the CNN website regarding the "event data recorder" units on most cars manufactured since the mid 90's. I always knew that Porsche could look deep into the electronic brains of our cars for warranty busting infractions (i.e. redline incursions, etc.). I didn't realize that the last 10 seconds prior to an accident and one second after of telemetry data was available to law enforcement via a "flight data recorder" type device buried deep within the cars we love so much. Heaven help those who might have an accident while speeding.

see link below:

http://www.cnn.com/video/player/play...ack.boxes.wsvn

RonCT

I'd known about this for a while and always equated them with US made cars. Perhaps it has something to do with the liability craze that is crippling this country. Consider this - a car crashes and somebody wants to point blame. If the car maker can point to the EDR and say "not our fault, the car worked fine, it's because the driver was going 10 over the limit..."

Just found this link - suggests that at the time of print Porsches did not have EDRs.
http://www.iihs.org/research/qanda/edr.html

Still, this is a good reminder that we should all drive safely on the street where there are people backing out of driveways, kids playing, etc. Save your hard driving for the track.

MJones

There was an incident at the last Rennspeed Reunion (April 2004) involving the crash of a PR Turbo Cab (996) into a 'K' rail...PCNA was able to determine the vehicles speed upon impact.
I know the the PCNA person who was the unlucky passenger in this incident and told me the speed at which they impacted, as determined by PCNA, after the incident.
Theres more data recording than we know about....

RonCT

Good point - I know in my M3 there was memory in the ECU that was used as a diagnostic tool for the mechanics. It also recorded how much time was spent over certain revs. My guess in the example you give is that the ECU knew what the revs were when the car "died" and they knew what gear it was in and deducted what the speed was.