Access Event Data Recorder - Ford

[caribbean20]

Involved in an accident with airbags deployed, in CO. No injuries. Data from EDR could be helpful (e.g., speed), but I want to see it first. Researched the issue and no easy answer (i.e., special equipment needed to access Bosch data gathering module). Called the local Ford dealer and rep told me they can access the data, but can not give ME the data, only police or insurance adjuster. It's my car and my data for gods sakes. Anyone ever heard of this? I am flabbergasted!

If this is true, talk about giving away our rights.

 

[rivermobster]

Yep...

It's been that way for ages. But there is some wrong info there...

Insurance companies are barred from this information.

Why? Right after air bags first came out (the air bag module is where your flight data is stored) some insurance company tried to deny a claim siting data from the flight recorder. Lawsuits ensued, and they were eventually barred from flight data information.

As far as the cops go, I'm not sure, but I believe they are barred as well.

The data is only available to the vehicle manufacturer I believe. @pronstar may have more info on this as well.

 

[MK1MOD0]

Wow. That seems insane. You own the car, but you don’t own the data??? Screw that. May need to take to an attorney if they won’t give you the info.

 

[4Waters]

Yep...

It's been that way for ages. But there is some wrong info there...

Insurance companies are barred from this information.

Why? Right after air bags first came out (the air bag module is where your flight data is stored) some insurance company tried to deny a claim siting data from the flight recorder. Lawsuits ensued, and they were eventually barred from flight data information.

As far as the cops go, I'm not sure, but I believe they are barred as well.

The data is only available to the vehicle manufacturer I believe. @pronstar may have more info on this as well.

It might be a state to state thing, I know here in California LEO are the only ones allowed to see it but in other states ins. companies may be allowed as well. My dad worked for Ford and had CHP come in and have them retrieve the data for them.

 

[530RL]

It gets very complicated depending upon what state you reside in, what the accident was, is there a question of civil or criminal liability and a host of other issues.

Google up "Driver Privacy Act of 2015" for a good start. It places limitations on data retrieval from EDRs and provides in general, subject to exceptions or waiver by owner or lessee of the vehicle, that information collected belongs to the owner or lessee of the vehicle. Then follow up with a google search of your state laws.

Lastly take a look at your insurance policy. Depending upon the state and the policy language, sometimes you have given access to the data to the insurance company via your insurance policy.

A quick summary of who can get access is in the "Exceptions to the Privacy Standard" section of this article in the National Law Review.

Driver Privacy Act of 2015 Addresses Privacy Concerns for Data Collected on Event Data Recorders

An event data recorder (EDR), as defined in 49 CFR section 563.5, generally means a device or function in a vehicle that records the vehicle’s dynamic time-series data during the time period just prior to or during a crash event. Such data is intended for retrieval after the event, but does not...

www.natlawreview.com

 

[Boat 405]

Involved in an accident with airbags deployed, in CO. No injuries. Data from EDR could be helpful (e.g., speed), but I want to see it first. Researched the issue and no easy answer (i.e., special equipment needed to access Bosch data gathering module). Called the local Ford dealer and rep told me they can access the data, but can not give ME the data, only police or insurance adjuster. It's my car and my data for gods sakes. Anyone ever heard of this? I am flabbergasted!

If this is true, talk about giving away our rights.

Yes all cars have them since 2013 I think maybe 2012, only to be accessed by the manufacturer

 

[caribbean20]

Noted . . . what happens if the EDR disappears while the car is in the tow lot and police later try to access the data? Obstruction of justice?

Asking for a friend

Any case, I've been around for many years and this is the first time I have ever heard of this latest trampling of our rights. The only justification I could make/understand is that the event occurred on a public road.

Thanks for the responses, I have more research to do using your "Driver Privacy Act" citation.

 

[rivermobster]

It might be a state to state thing, I know here in California LEO are the only ones allowed to see it but in other states ins. companies may be allowed as well. My dad worked for Ford and had CHP come in and have them retrieve the data for them.

Probably. I'm in CA, and that's those are the rules I was told back when I worked for Lexus.

But if you know someone who knows someone...

 

[4Waters]

Probably. I'm in CA, and that's those are the rules I was told back when I worked for Lexus.

But if you know someone who knows someone...

LOL, it required a lot of paperwork, court orders and shit, before anything could be downloaded an attorney from Ford Motor Company had to look over all the paperwork and approve it.

 

[pronstar]

I don’t have much to add beyond what 530 posted...”it depends”.

Folks might be surprised to realize that EDR’s have been in use since the early 2000’s - that’s 20 years now. Initially it was just a few models, but since around 2013 or so, they’ve been added to nearly every vehicle.


Welcome to Big Data.

Isn’t it ironic that we are private citizens, but have no right to our own data?

Meanwhile, publicly traded companies claim ownership to your private data, and they can trade/sell/barter it.

And we private citizens are barred from knowing what publicly traded companies actually do with our private data.

It’s like bizarro world...


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

 

[monkeyswrench]

I had no idea that most cars had this stuff now. I had seen some true life crime show that mentioned retrieving data from a car that was used to run head on into traffic, and they claimed they had fallen asleep. They said they could look at the last drive cycle and look at speed, rpm and tps data.
What does it know? Engine info, or cabin as well?

Points and carbs...

 

[Mcob25rg]

How do you find out where it is in your vehicle? My friend has a 2016 Silverado and asked if I could find it

 

[pronstar]

How do you find out where it is in your vehicle? My friend has a 2016 Silverado and asked if I could find it

It’s different for every vehicle. TBH I have no idea where it is in my own vehicles.

Good info here on how to find it:

How to Remove a Black Box | The Future of Claims Investigations

The car's black box, or event data recorder, can be removed to preserve the recorded data from the car crash, if the airbags deployed or its a total loss.

collisionsciences.ca

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

 

[rivermobster]

I had no idea that most cars had this stuff now. I had seen some true life crime show that mentioned retrieving data from a car that was used to run head on into traffic, and they claimed they had fallen asleep. They said they could look at the last drive cycle and look at speed, rpm and tps data.
What does it know? Engine info, or cabin as well?

Points and carbs...

It stores everything involving drive train and vehicle travel data. Including braking and steering. Also HVAC data, as that affects the engine computer as well.

Remember years ago, when Toyota/Lexus was being slammed for cars that accelerated all on their own??

Eventually, the NHTSA looked into it. They randomly pulled the black boxes from a selection of vehicles involved in said crashes. In every single one of them, the customer had their foot on the gas, and not the brake.

If you have a complete understanding of how drive by wire works, it's impossible for the electronic throttle functions to fail. Every sensor involved is redundant internally. As are all the computer and software functions. The throttle has to physically be held open. It cannot open on its own.

But this information never made the front page of any news outlet. The whole thing just quietly went away. This is the final report:

U.S. Department of Transportation Releases Results from NHTSA-NASA Study of Unintended Acceleration in Toyota Vehicles | National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration

one.nhtsa.gov

 

[Shlbyntro]

It stores everything involving drive train and vehicle travel data. Including braking and steering. Also HVAC data, as that affects the engine computer as well.

Remember years ago, when Toyota/Lexus was being slammed for cars that accelerated all on their own??

Eventually, the NHTSA looked into it. They randomly pulled the black boxes from a selection of vehicles involved in said crashes. In every single one of them, the customer had their foot on the gas, and not the brake.

If you have a complete understanding of how drive by wire works, it's impossible for the electronic throttle functions to fail. Every sensor involved is redundant internally. As are all the computer and software functions. The throttle has to physically be held open. It cannot open on its own.

But this information never made the front page of any news outlet. The whole thing just quietly went away. This is the final report:

U.S. Department of Transportation Releases Results from NHTSA-NASA Study of Unintended Acceleration in Toyota Vehicles | National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration

one.nhtsa.gov

Tell that to a Tige that I was servicing a couple years ago. The computer saw me open the throttle when I did a quick pop of the throttle to make sure the engine was responsive and running on all 8, but it did not see me immediately bring it back to idle. The computer continued to rev the fucking shit out of the engine with no load. It took me a couple seconds to realize what was going on before I was able to reach over and pull the kill lanyard.

This was a fly by wire model and it was a first hand experience of mine, not something I heard from somebody who heard from somebody. I'm now ready to pull the kill lanyard immediately when this happens. To this day, it's only happened on that one, but I dont rap the throttle that fast anymore on fly by wire because of that boat.

Either way, I dont like fly by wire because of shit like this.

 

[95Enforcer]

The Bosch CDR equipment is over $30k. We have two for the entire SBCSD with only a handful of us that are certified to retrieve and read the data provided (I'm trained and certified as a member of the major accident investigation team). We can only use it for investigative purposes and have to have solid probable cause and a search warrant to retrieve the info and even access the vehicle. We cant just pull the date just because we feel we need it. It records up to 5 seconds before and after an event (crash and/or air bag deployment). It also shows many different parameters like acceleration level, braking, speed, steering input and even if your seat belt was latched. The data can also be erased or altered from the memory on certain vehicles if messed with or even dropping the device or shaking it once removed. It can record events that don't deploy the air bags as well and store them for so many key cycles.

You can usually google where your air bag control module is and that is the same as your CDR.

2016 silverado is under the driver seat or center console if I remember correctly from a fatal I handled a couple years ago. Most are going to be in the center of the vehicle under the console or forward towards the dash on the floor.

 

[rivermobster]

Tell that to a Tige that I was servicing a couple years ago. The computer saw me open the throttle when I did a quick pop of the throttle to make sure the engine was responsive and running on all 8, but it did not see me immediately bring it back to idle. The computer continued to rev the fucking shit out of the engine with no load. It took me a couple seconds to realize what was going on before I was able to reach over and pull the kill lanyard.

This was a fly by wire model and it was a first hand experience of mine, not something I heard from somebody who heard from somebody. I'm now ready to pull the kill lanyard immediately when this happens. To this day, it's only happened on that one, but I dont rap the throttle that fast anymore on fly by wire because of that boat.

Either way, I dont like fly by wire because of shit like this.

Well let's think about this...

Normally, on a fly by wire throttle body, there is no way to open the throttle by hand. So how exactly did you open said throttle body??

Here is one for your refrence, so you can tell the class how you opened it up....

 

[bonesfab]

sure glad I don't own anything that new.

 

[Shlbyntro]

Well let's think about this...

Normally, on a fly by wire throttle body, there is no way to open the throttle by hand. So how exactly did you open said throttle body??

Here is one for your refrence, so you can tell the class how you opened it up....

With the throttle lever on the side of the boat. The computer saw my command to open the throttle but did not see my command to close it. After which the engine throttle became completely nonresponsive. Trust me, I tried moving the throttle a couple times in those short seconds to get it to return to idle before I determined my only option was to pull the kill lanyard.

 

[lbhsbz]

A capable scan tool might give you a significant amount of clues...assuming that the collision caused enough damage to qualify as code set criteria...at least for a pending code, the freeze frame data that exists for that code will very likely give you a ton of information....you might consider that first.

 

[rivermobster]

With the throttle lever on the side of the boat. The computer saw my command to open the throttle but did not see my command to close it. After which the engine throttle became completely nonresponsive. Trust me, I tried moving the throttle a couple times in those short seconds to get it to return to idle before I determined my only option was to pull the kill lanyard.

Scary shit.

I have no clue how boat drive by wire works, other than it's sensitive as fuck! lol

Bad throttle position sensor??

 

[monkeyswrench]

In terms of the Tige fly by wire setup, I wonder if they are mandated to have the same redundancy a DOT / over the road vehicle must have.

 

[Shlbyntro]

In terms of the Tige fly by wire setup, I wonder if they are mandated to have the same redundancy a DOT / over the road vehicle must have.

I would say no. They use Livorsi DTS style controls hooked up to the Indmar engine via standard NMEA coms.

Like I said, it only happened on that one boat, that one time. But I was lucky it was on a trailer and the owner was lucky it happened to me. I never did find the root cause as there was no "event log" and I didn't have a laptop hooked up to it when it happened. The owner traded the boat in the following season maybe because of me informing him of that, maybe not. Idk.

However, once was enough for me. I dont trust the technology, never have, and likely never will. Yes I know the industry is headed that way, but I will be one who will be kicking and screaming the entire way.

 

[wettrthebettr]

I also was in a Accident on a snowy interstate, With a driver that lost control and came into my lane In front of me causing me to hit the rear of his Vehicle.
The driver told the Insurance a lie and said all he knew was he was hit from the vehicle behind him. As his story and my story went back and forth.
I told them to review the Data Recorder ( Black Box) they told me They could not View it.
So I told both insurance companies to Review the other driver again about him Losing control and sliding out of control into my lane.
Well Guess What Happen, The other vehicle china man left the country back to China and They said they could not go after him.
I guess someone has to die for the Black Box , (Data Recorder) to be used.

 

[95Enforcer]

I also was in a Accident on a snowy interstate, With a driver that lost control and came into my lane In front of me causing me to hit the rear of his Vehicle.
The driver told the Insurance a lie and said all he knew was he was hit from the vehicle behind him. As his story and my story went back and forth.
I told them to review the Data Recorder ( Black Box) they told me They could not View it.
So I told both insurance companies to Review the other driver again about him Losing control and sliding out of control into my lane.
Well Guess What Happen, The other vehicle china man left the country back to China and They said they could not go after him.
I guess someone has to die for the Black Box , (Data Recorder) to be used.

The only time I have ever seen an insurance company pull info off of the CDR is when fraud is suspected. Unfortunately it seems like insurance companies Don't seem to care about minor crashes and are okay with not having all the pertinent facts. Only cover themselves when they suspect fraud and have to pay out on it.

 

[caribbean20]

The Bosch CDR equipment is over $30k. We have two for the entire SBCSD with only a handful of us that are certified to retrieve and read the data provided (I'm trained and certified as a member of the major accident investigation team). We can only use it for investigative purposes and have to have solid probable cause and a search warrant to retrieve the info and even access the vehicle. We cant just pull the date just because we feel we need it. It records up to 5 seconds before and after an event (crash and/or air bag deployment). It also shows many different parameters like acceleration level, braking, speed, steering input and even if your seat belt was latched. The data can also be erased or altered from the memory on certain vehicles if messed with or even dropping the device or shaking it once removed. It can record events that don't deploy the air bags as well and store them for so many key cycles.

You can usually google where your air bag control module is and that is the same as your CDR.

2016 silverado is under the driver seat or center console if I remember correctly from a fatal I handled a couple years ago. Most are going to be in the center of the vehicle under the console or forward towards the dash on the floor.

Thanks for the info. I knew someone here would be an expert. In our situation, the police requested we waive our 4th amendment rights and allow them access to the EDR. We, of course, ignored the request and I think they just dropped it.

I’ve since schooled my daughter extensively on her 4th and 5th amendment rights after an accident. From now on, it’s either “I don’t know” or “I exercise my right to remain silent.” Other driver was at fault and thankfully no injuries. Police nevertheless tried to pursue a citation based on a statement made by the driver who had just experienced a traumatic event, and may have been concussed. After I arrived and initiated a brief discussion about burden of proof, the matter was rightfully dropped.

 

[95Enforcer]

Thanks for the info. I knew someone here would be an expert. In our situation, the police requested we waive our 4th amendment rights and allow them access to the EDR. We, of course, ignored the request and I think they just dropped it.

I’ve since schooled my daughter extensively on her 4th and 5th amendment rights after an accident. From now on, it’s either “I don’t know” or “I exercise my right to remain silent.” Other driver was at fault and thankfully no injuries. Police nevertheless tried to pursue a citation based on a statement made by the driver who had just experienced a traumatic event, and may have been concussed. After I arrived and initiated a brief discussion about burden of proof, the matter was rightfully dropped.

Very good call. If we need the CDR we get a warrant regardless so theres no issues in court later even though we may have permission. Most of the time the driver is incapacitated or deceased so there is no one to give permission. I had a CDR download help my evidence on a victims vehicle during a double fatal back in 2017 and the suspect is now doing life in prison for murder. So it has to be a solid reason With solid probable cause to take that CDR.

Traffic Collisions can be very traumatic at the time and sometimes not the time to collect all your statements due to emotions and adrenaline. Theres times i have to wait a day or two and get a thorough interview So the statement is better. That way I can get more information or see if they try to lie to me about what happened after I have thoroughly evaluated a scene and collected my evidence.

Glad your daughter was okay. Cars can be replaced. Lives can’t. Be safe out there.